Going Magic
by Lumpy1
Summary: A joint mission between Suna and Konoha sends six young shinobi into the undercover role of students at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Read and review please. Chapter 6 is up!
1. Chapter 1

Going Magic

Chapter 1: Sorting

Yeah, I know, it's an old plotline but I really wanted to use it. ^^

Characters: Gaara, Temari, Kankurou – gotta love the sandsibs – Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru and well, all the magic folk they run into over time

Pairings: Hmm, well they're kids so not so much. Possibly slight Temari/Shikamaru, and by the same definition you could consider there to be equally slight Hermione/Ron… I guess?

Set: Before Shippuden. During Book 5, Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter

Note: It's been a good long while since I read HP so I'll probably be fuzzy on several details – however since I'll be writing primarily from the Naruto characters' POV I hope this won't be too annoying. The plotline would be altered if a gang of shinobi would enter the scene, right?

Warning: Crossover? Is that qualified to be a warning?

_Italics_ – Japanese; You know, my native language ain't English so I'm sure I'll make enough grammatical and other types of errors without throwing a third language in the mix.

Also I, personally, find it kind of annoying to have to look up certain words in an otherwise English fic – thus interrupting the flow of the text. I'm quirky like that.

* * *

"_Gah! What the heck are those things?!" _

"_Naruto! Quiet down, you idiot!"_ Ino hissed, tempted to beat the fool over the head like she'd seen Sakura do on occasion. A lot of occasions really.

"_Yeah, you little brat. Shut it."_ Another shinobi agreed huffily. In the darkness of the forest Ino could barely see her companions but she knew which one had come to her support. It wasn't difficult to figure out; out of the four guys on the squad only two were from her village and one of the ones that weren't didn't do the talking thing. And when he did she kinda wished he didn't.

"_Hey, who the hell are you calling a brat, bat brain?"_ Naruto yelled, rounding on them.

"_What did you say?"_ the other guy – damn, what was his name again? Kankou? Kanky? Something like that.

Beside her Ino could hear Shikamaru sigh and knew that there would soon be a muttered "troublesome" coming.

"_You heard me. Heh, didn't you, batty?" _

"_You little…"_

"_Heh, brain of bat shi-" _

And here it was – the fighting would begin in earnest and they'd be found out and the mission would be ruined and Hokage-sama would kill them and…

"_Kankurou."_ One word, which was all it took for the fight that never was to never be. Oh, right, Kankurou… that was his name. _"Enough."_

That voice wasn't even angry, or stern, or anything at all really, but it still cut through the raised voices like a knife, slicing any argument in two.

"_Ah… Gaara…. But…." _Kankurou babbled, suddenly uncertain.

"_You're compromising the mission."_ Gaara's voice never wavered, never gave any sign of emotion.

"_But…" _

"_Gaara's right, dumbass. You two stop behaving like children and start acting like damn shinobi. We've got a mission to do."_ A female voice agreed – the last member of their joint Konoha/Suna team and only other girl. She pushed past Kankurou and Naruto and began walking ahead. _"Let's go." _

"_What? You want us to walk down there to those things?" _Naruto's voice said, not as loudly as before. _"Are you stupid?" _

Ino saw the other girl stiffen and stopping in her tracks.

"_Great. Now you've done it, idiot."_ Kankurou muttered pointedly to Naruto.

"_What? What did I do? We can't just go down there, we need to form a plan of attack and…" _

"_Naruto, use your eyes." _Shikamaru finally decided to join the conversation, heaving a heavy sigh as he did so. _"The students of this school are climbing into the carriages drawn by those creatures, they're most likely…" _

"_They're what?"_ Naruto hurriedly turned back to peek out at the yard where the creatures – great, black, oddly horse like things – were standing. Sure enough the students, a happily chattering crowd, were busy making their way into the carriages without an ounce of fear. In fact they seemed to ignore the creatures entirely. One girl very nearly walked into one of them and the horse like thing merely moved away gracefully, letting her by.

"…_harmless."_ Shikamaru finished and sighed again.

"_Who's stupid now?"_ Temari taunted, turning her head just enough to fire off a smirk aimed at Naruto before continuing on her path. Gaara followed leisurely, and then so did Kankurou who like his sister turned his head and smirked.

"_Come on then, dummy. Or are you chicken?" _

"_Hey! Who're you calling chicken? I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I'm gonna be Hokage one day! Believe it!"_ Naruto boasted huffily, albeit not as loudly as before and rushed after him.

Ino watched them leave with a frown. _"He better not tackle him or anything, or I swear I'll kick his ass."_ She vowed heatedly.

"_How troublesome."_ Shikamaru sighed.

* * *

"Er… you know that bloke right?"

Ino was severely tempted to say no. To claim on her parent's non existing graves that no, no way in hell did she know that guy who was leaning so far out the window that she suspected that the only reason he didn't fall out was because he had glued his feet to the floor with chakra. So it was with outmost reluctance that she finally nodded.

The guy sitting across from her in the carriage had red hair, rumpled in that way which only boys could manage. A bit like Gaara's mop of hair, only Gaara's was even redder. Now the other boy eyed Naruto sceptically. "What's he doing?"

Huh? She had heard that correct, right? She knew that her English wasn't perfect but… she glanced sideways at Shikamaru who had a calculating look on his face. Well, didn't he always?

"The creatures." She replied slowly, pronouncing each word carefully. Gah, English sure was difficult to speak. The words didn't feel like they fit in her mouth. She hoped it'd grow easier over time. "He's looking at them."

"Huh? What creatures?" Ron asked, obviously confused but the other boy next to him instantly sat up straighter, almost as if he'd been startled. This was the first time she had been this close to Harry Potter and she couldn't help but take a closer look at that lightning bolt scar. Since the start of this mission they had all taken turns watching the guy from afar, gauging his traits and quirks, but none of them had approached him before.

"Wait. You can see those things?" Harry asked.

"What things?" Ron asked with exasperation.

"Of course we can see them." Ino snorted at the same time, then caught herself and gave Ron a surprised look. Quickly she looked at Shikamaru. He was frowning. "He can't see them?" Ino asked, nodding at Ron.

"No. Only I could see them." The dark haired boy said. "And Luna." He added as an afterthought.

"Wait, do you mean there's something pulling the carriages?" Ron asked, already joining Naruto by the window and looking outside. "I can't see anything."

"_What? Are you stupid? Gah, stupid language, I can't… _They. There!" Ino could hear Naruto respond in broken English. Most likely he was pointing and waving animatedly too.

Great first impression.

"Naruto." She hissed with the intention of dragging the other shinobi back into the carriage.

"Where?" She heard Ron ask. By now he was leaning out almost as far as Naruto.

"Ron! That's dangerous, come back inside!" The only other girl in the carriage called out. "You're going to fall out."

"No I won't!" Ron responded indignantly.

"Come back inside. Or I'll send and owl to your mother the moment we get to Hogwarts."

That comment worked like a charm. Within moments the boy was seated again.

The girl, Hermione, held out a hand. For a moment Ino stared at it in confusion until Shikamaru leaned forward and shook the hand.

"Shikamaru." He introduced himself, giving Ino a look that clearly said 'follow my lead'. Blushing Ino did and shook the hand, simultaneously cursing herself for having forgotten about the odd custom of joining hands while greeting each other. They'd observed it several times over the past week while doing recognisance. "Gomen… er, sorry. I'm Ino."

"That's some weird names, huh, mate?" She heard Ron whisper in Harry's ear, obviously trying to be inconspicuous and failing miserably.

"We're exchange students." She replied primly, sending him a superior glare. "From… Japan."

The redhead's eyes grew almost comically wide while his face slowly turned very red. For a moment she wondered if he was choking on his own tongue. Would serve him right if he did, she thought vehemently. There certainly wasn't anything weird about her name.

"Yeah, alright." Ron finally manage to splutter out, sitting back so far that he looked like he was trying to merge with the seat.

"Me Naruto." Naruto added, pointing at himself almost boastfully. Yeah, 'cause he's so great, Ino thought snidely and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. They really needed to teach him to speak better English. He sounded like a caveman.

"So it's just the three of you?"

"More. Three." Naruto explained, holding up three fingers to empathise and counted: "Temari, Kankurou, Gaara. There! _Damn it, I really hate this language. _There." Naruto pointed out the carriage towards another, and then yelled loudly, waving his hand. "Yo! Gaara!"

A pale face turned his way and a steady, green stare fell on Naruto for a long moment. Then Gaara… blinked. Once. And looked away again.

Scratching the back of his neck sheepishly Naruto grinned. "Heh, he's not… gah… _what's the word for chatty in this stupid language?_"

* * *

"_Wow, awesome!_"

They had only just stepped foot inside a large hall. No, the Great Hall, Ino corrected herself. That was what these wizards had called it; The Great Hall. And it was great. Filled with students that were seated along four long tables and adults, which she assumed were the teachers, along yet another table at the end of the hall. What was the most notable about the hall, and also the cause for Naruto's exclamation, was the ceiling though. Or the apparent lack thereof. Logically she knew there was a ceiling somewhere above, she could see the pillars holding it up fading in the distance, but somehow it showed the open sky. A dark, starry sky that somehow seemed more immense whilst contained within these walls.

Looking around she saw that Naruto wasn't the only one impressed by the sight, although amongst the shinobi he was the only one to voice it that loudly. These children, new students apparently, that was milling around them all were saying similar things.

The old man standing at the end of the hall smiled at them while they approached. Truthfully Ino had thought that the previous time they'd met their client he'd been experiencing some sort of mental breakdown, because, really, who'd dress like that? All of that blue and red and silver and yellow, and the stars and the moons and… and that hat - kami-sama, was the man colour blind? He was insulting her finely honed fashion sense and he didn't even seem to realise it.

Clack!

The elderly woman – witch, she reminded herself – that had led them into the Great Hall sharply sat down a stool in front of the teacher's table and then stepped away from it. There was an old patched hat sitting on it. Immediately the hall went quiet and Ino carefully looked around, trying to discern why everyone had suddenly stopped talking.

Then someone started singing. It sounded like the voice of an old man but when she looked over at Dumbledore she couldn't see his lips moving.

"_Gah! That hat is singing!"_ Naruto yelled, pointing an accusing finger at the old piece of headgear.

And it was. Ino couldn't decide what to think about that. Clothes were not supposed to grow sentient, that she did know. And they sure as hell were not supposed to burst out in song.

"_Stupid."_ Temari muttered and snorted disdainfully.

"_That's what they call the Sorting Hat,"_ Shikamaru said, causing the other shinobi to turn to look at him. _"Once it's stopped singing we will be divided into one of the four houses."_

"_How do you know that?"_ Ino whispered.

"_Dumbledore briefed us about this ritual during our meeting."_ He replied lazily. He looked annoyed with her question and Ino glared. Was he trying to insinuate that she was a bad listener?

"_I know that."_ She replied huffily. _"You could've told us it was going to sing."_

Shikamaru heaved a heavy sigh that really could mean anything. Being on the same team with him for the past year and a half told her that he did that whenever he didn't feel like explaining something. Or expected a fight.

"_What are the four houses then?"_ Temari asked._ "How do they divide people between them?" _

"_Those of great cunning goes to Slytherin,"_ Gaara said, monotone as ever. He sounded distant, as if he was not really talking to any of them at all. _"Those of sharp minds go to Ravenclaw. Those of great daring goes to Gryffindor and the rest are placed in Hufflepuff." _

"_How do you know?"_ Temari asked, looking surprised. Ino didn't blame her: she'd been surprised when Gaara talked too. Since this mission began she was confident that she could've counted the number of times that guy had talked on one hand. She might still have fingers left too.

"_The hat told me."_ Gaara replied and Kankurou snorted with laughter.

"_Yeah, Temari. You should listen when the hat do a ditty, everyone knows that."_ He smirked.

"_Shut it, doll-boy."_ The girl snapped back.

"_They're not dolls,"_ Kankurou said, clearly affronted. _"They're…" _

"_It has stopped singing."_ Gaara interrupted, causing the both of them to quickly bite down on whatever they'd wanted to say when applause broke out all around them. Only crazy magical people would applaud a singing hat, Ino decided. Well, apparently crazy magical people and _Naruto_, she amended after a glance his way.

Once the applause and the subsequent whispering between the students had died down the old witch nodded her head and retrieved a paper from within her… dress? Robes?

"This year the sorting will begin with a group of older students." She explained, addressing the hall. Immediately the whispering started up again but the witch didn't appear inclined to explain further why there was suddenly a heap of older students being enrolled, instead she shot a baleful glare across the hall and the whispering settled once more.

Then, clearing her throat once, she proceeded by slaughtering Shikamaru's name.

"Nara, Shikamaru."

To be honest Ino could barely make out which one of them the woman had called forth, and she wasn't entirely certain until her team-mate sighed and continued forward. Once he was standing in front of the woman she gestured towards the stool. "Well have a seat, Mr Nara."

He lazily sat down on the stool and the witch placed the hat on his head. Ino pulled a face of distaste when she realised that they'd do the same to her as well. The mere thought of having that smelly old rag touching her hair made her skin crawl and she reached up to stroke her hair. It was a mission for her village, she reminded herself. She couldn't back out. Kami-sama, the things a girl would do for a mission. Perhaps she could wash it later.

"Ravenclaw!" The hat barked loudly and instantly the students by one of the tables started clapping loudly. She noted that their generic black robes were marked with blue. Blue would go great with her eyes, she thought absentmindedly while Shikamaru meandered his way over to and sat down by that table.

"Sabaku, Gaara." The witch called out and this time she seemed to have an easier time with the pronunciation.

The redheaded boy sat down on the stool, his pale face as expressionless as ever. This time the hat didn't take long to decide, it had barely settled on his head when it cried out: "Slytherin!"

Was it her imagination or did the rag sound frightened?

Gaara stood and walked over to the table farthest to the left to where the students' cheers guided him. A quick look told her that the colour choice for that house was green, oh and silver. Very stylish of them. Green and silver went well together, she thought, and she could definitely make it work with her colouring. Although… no, she didn't relish the thought of being in the same house as Gaara. That guy gave her the cr-

"Sabaku, Kankurou." The witch called out, having some difficulty with his given name.

"_I better not end up in Hufflepuff."_ Kankurou muttered darkly, mostly to himself it seemed, as he walked forward. _"From the sound of things that place is the equivalent of a magical slop pail." _

Not to mention that he just wouldn't have been able to pull off that yellow colour. Come to think of it she wasn't so keen on it either, Ino thought with a frown when the witch placed the hat on Kankurou's messy head of hair.

This time the hat appeared to take way long and judging from the many and varied facial expressions flittering on Kankurou's face he was either having a stroke or… was the hat talking to him? Like in his head?

"_Don't you dare, you filthy piece of trash."_ He suddenly snapped, his eyes glaring upwards at the hat that, oddly, seemed to smirk.

"Very well then," The hat declared. "Ravenclaw!"

"Damn it!" Kankurou barked out furiously, ripping the hat off his head and appeared to attempt to strangle it even while the Ravenclaw table erupted in cheers… which quickly died down in confused whisperings and mutterings.

"Mr Sabaku!" The witch snapped sternly. "Unhand the Sorting Hat this instance!"

"I will once it places me in the right house." Kankurou snapped back.

"Now, Mr Sabaku," Dumbledore said mildly, smiling way too kindly. "The Sorting Hat makes its decision based on your finest qualities and once made is final. This is an honoured tradition since this fine institution was founded. I'm afraid I will have to insist that you refrain from tearing it apart."

Kankurou looked surly but after another moment he handed the hat over to the witch, who quickly dusted it off and glared at him.

"Whatever." He muttered moodily and sat down by the Ravenclaw table. The students next to him moved away a little, Ino noticed. She didn't blame them.

Once order had been restored Dumbledore smiled cheerfully at the students and gestured for the sorting ceremony to resume.

"Sabaku, Temari." The witch intoned her voice stern and clipped. When the last of the sand ninja walked up to the stool the witch eyed her warily, as if expecting her to attack the hat too.

Temari settled down, looking rather huffy and glared ahead of her when the hat was cautiously set on her head.

After another moment her glare grew in intensity and her lips tightened.

When the hat shouted out a: "Gryffindor!" Ino could've sworn the other girl looked both annoyed and disappointed for a second, but the expression was quickly wiped away when she stood and walked over to the assigned table. That table in particular appeared to cheer the loudest, thumping backs left and right and howling like hounds. Really kind of an unsightly bunch. And their colours were red and gold, which was just… no. Heaps of no.

"Uzumaki, Naruto."

Naruto was grinning like a little kid when the hat was set on his head. Quickly his face turned surprised, eyes wide and mouth agape. That idiot probably hadn't even realised that the hat was talking to them, she thought and smiled wryly.

"Gryffindor!" The hat called out, causing another bout of cheering and back thumping from the red table, and Naruto jumped up, striking a victory pose.

"_Oh yeah! Feast your eyes on Naruto Uzumaki, the number one leaf shinobi and future Hokage!"_ He yelled out, grinning and gesturing, and although none of the students could possibly understand a word the cheering grew even wilder and louder. It continued until the blond boy had been forcefully pulled down to sit by Temari and the old witch sent a stern glare towards them.

"Yamanaka, Ino." The witch said, finally calling her name.

Straightening her back she smiled her best smile when she walked up to the stool. Inwardly her mind was reeling; trying desperately to decide which house she wanted the hat to place her in. She figured that she should be able to reason with it easily enough, one mind manipulator to another, but… oh, blue, yellow, red or green?

"Ah, I see." The hat's gruffly old man's voice suddenly was in her head and she was startled. She'd never experienced anything like it before. Mind manipulation was sort of her area of expertise and she'd never had anything like it done to her before. She decided that she didn't care for it.

"What do you see?" She voiced the question in her head, trying to sound as cordial as possible.

"You possess some sharp wit, most definitely, ah yes." It responded thoughtfully. "And rather a bit a bravery as well."

"Thank you." She replied, attempting to sound humble. Inwardly she was cheering herself. Oh yeah, sharp wit and bravery. Good stuff.

The hat chuckled. "Pride is ingrained in you, I see."

Well, having pride in one own ability and appearance wasn't a bad thing either. Perhaps this hat wasn't as dumb as she'd first thought, really it seemed quite astute.

"But your greatest quality is your ambition," it murmured. "Therefore I shall place you in; Slytherin!"

Wait, what? Ino's eyes widened in surprise. Just like that the decision had been made and she'd not even got a chance to… the hat had just complimented her and… it had duped her. She'd been outsmarted by a hat, she realised shamefaced, while the old witch removed the hat from her head and told her to go join her new house.

And, oh, crap, Ino thought with dread while she walked over towards the Slytherin table. She was going to be living with Gaara.

At least she got the green and silver… it would go well with her colouring.

* * *

Author's notes: So how does it look to you guys? Worth continuing?

Not all of this will be written from Ino's POV. The POV will wander about some, I promise, I just enjoyed writing the intro from her point of view since, well I think Ino would have a lot to say about the wizarding world. And she's delightfully vain, which I love.

I hope the characters are reasonably IC – it's not easy writing a crossover and keeping them in character, I've come to realise. Although it's always a struggle keeping other people's characters IC isn't it?

Please do tell me what you think of it: I love getting reviews – keeps me going, see? And also makes me aware of any impending pitfalls, and things I might have to think about in the future. THX


	2. Chapter 2

Going Magic

Chapter 2: First impressions

Characters: Gaara, Temari, Kankurou – gotta love the sandsibs – Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru and well, all the magic folk they run into over time

Pairings: Hmm, well they're kids so not so much. Possibly slight Temari/Shikamaru, and by the same definition you could consider there to be equally slight Hermione/Ron… I guess?

Set: Before Shippuden, after chuunin exams. During Book 5, Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter

Note: It's been a good long while since I read HP so I'll probably be fuzzy on several details – however since I'll be writing primarily from the Naruto characters' POV I hope this won't be too annoying. The plotline would be altered if a gang of shinobi would enter the scene, right?

Warning: Crossover? Is that qualified to be a warning?

_Italics_ - Japanese

* * *

Hogwarts, Kankurou had come to realise, was ridiculous. On so many levels. He had just encountered a new level when he and Shikamaru, followed by a heap of prattling brats, had climbed the stairs to what was supposed to be a common room for their house. Only the door wouldn't open and now the brass knocker in the shape of an eagle was talking to him.

"Brothers and sisters I have none but this man's father is my father's son. Who is the man?" it said.

"What the hell?" He muttered, glaring at the talkative piece of metal. "What the hell's that all about?"

"It's a riddle." A girl about his own age replied calmly but loud enough to let all the little brats hear her as well. "Here at Ravenclaw we value knowledge and wisdom. To get into the common room you need to answer the riddle."

"So what the hell happens if you get it wrong?" Kankurou asked, frowning and inwardly dreading having to decipher riddles at every damn turn. He hated riddles.

"You'll have to wait for a person to answer it correctly." The girl said as if it was the most sensible thing in the world.

"What kind of dumb…" Kankurou began but was interrupted by Shikamaru's lazy drawl of a voice.

"My son."

"What?" Kankurou asked, baffled for only a moment before the door clicked open, leaving him to glare alternatively between the offending door and the offending konoha shinobi.

"Come on, I want to get some rest." Shikamaru said, walking past him into the common room.

Kankurou snorted, gave the door one last annoyed look and followed.

* * *

To be honest, when Ino was told that she was going to sleep in the dungeons she hadn't been thrilled. Visions of dark and dank holes in the ground had filled her mind and none of them fit with her vision of comfort. In short; she'd been expecting the worst.

It hadn't helped that an arrogant looking blond guy had stopped the whole lot of them outside of the entrance and then had given them a longwinded speech about – well mostly it had been about how he was a prefect and therefore better than them. He had also made it a point of pointing out that he had the power to hand out punishments and detentions. The vain fool had been holding court in the Great Hall too, drawing hulking laughs from a couple of hunkering big lugs of guys.

By the time he actually let them into the dungeons her mood had not been shiny but had quickly brightened. The dungeons were not only luxurious but downright lavish. Stylish even, with their green and silver décor. The first room they entered was grand and looked like the type of space made for gatherings with the many sofas and armchairs and low tables standing around in varying sized groups. The most eye catching thing in the entire room however was a great fireplace set in one of the walls.

Immediately Ino knew that this was where she'd be conducting a large amount of her work. Part of the mission would be intelligence gathering after all. This meant playing the social game. Thankfully that was a game she aced in because even after the limited amount of time she'd spent in Gaara's general vicinity she suspected that she'd have to up the ante. Gaara just did not do social.

Kami-sama, why couldn't she have been placed on the same team as Shikamaru?

The next time she saw that stupid rag of a hat she'd… she'd do something horrible.

But for now she had a base-of-operation that met her needs just nicely.

When one of the girls told she and the other new girls to follow her so she could show them where they'd sleep Ino turned to Gaara.

"Well…" She said haltingly, glancing at her redheaded companion. Gaara looked at her impassively, giving no sign of any type of interest or disinterest. It was as if it was nothing more than an automated muscular response. "…Goodnight."

He said nothing in return only looked away leaving her to awkwardly follow the rest of the girl. Kami-sama, how am I supposed to survive this mission working with that guy?

* * *

"_Woah! Temari! Do you see that? That armoured guy in the painting's talking!_" Naruto exclaimed excitedly, gesturing at his none too impressed companion to look.

"_Shut up and calm down_." The blond Sand shinobi ordered brusquely. "_You're going to knock one of these brats over the railing with all that failing around!_"

Tsk, Naruto was starting to think that the people of Suna had their humour forcedly removed as children. Scrunching his face up he blew a raspberry and turned his attention back to the armoured guy. It seemed to be talking to him but it was speaking so fast and using English words he didn't really grasp so he gave up trying to figure it out. Instead he peered closely, wondering how it was possible for a painted guy to be hopping around like that. He tried poking it but the little armoured man jumped aside, gesturing wildly and screaming at him in a loud voice. Grinning Naruto tried again, and again with the same result until the armoured guy seemed to have enough and did something amazing. He rushed out of the painting.

"_Gah! Hey, where'd he go?_" Naruto asked, looking around wildly. "_Oi! Little armoured man where'd you go?_"

"Oi, mate!" The redhead that was guiding them shouted from up ahead and Naruto turned. Yeah he did understand some English; however speaking the language… well it was a lot harder than any of his fellow shinobi cared to admit. It was a stupid language anyway. Mate, Naruto thought meant something along the lines of –san. Right, maybe the lanky redhead couldn't remember his name. These wi- wiz- magic people were pretty crap at pronouncing shinobi names anyways.

"Naruto Uzumaki!" He yelled back, stabbing himself in the chest with a thumb.

The guy pulled a confused face. "Whatever you -, mate."

Maybe he didn't get it. Tsk, dumb magic folk, he thought and repeated, slower this time: "Na-ru-to!"

The redhead looked even more confused.

"That's - name, Ron. Naruto." The bushy haired girl said and rolled her eyes. "He - you to use- name."

Yeah, she got it, Naruto was sure of it. Grinning he made a thumbs up at her. Improvised sign language was great.

"Oh, right. Well, - tell- to hurry up then."

Sighing the girl walked over to him, holding out her hand. "Hello, I'm -. I'm a -. So- need- help- me."

Somehow Naruto felt that he didn't really catch that and he glanced at Temari that were standing not very far away, arms crossed and observing the scene with a smirk. Maybe Suna people did have a sense of humour – just a really crappy kind.

"_They want you to move your ass_." She said. "_They're trying to show us the way to our… house and you're lagging behind. So move it._ "

Naruto huffed and crossed his arms. "_That's all? I wanted to take a look at the moving paintings first. I can come later._"

"_Now._" The blond girl snapped and glared. For a moment Naruto wondered if that glare of doom was a family trait or something he could learn – felling his enemies with a mere glare would be really cool. "_I'm not running around looking for your sorry ass later just because you got lost._"

Under duress Naruto finally gave in and followed the rest of the group, muttering under his breath while they were lead through a short hallway.

"_As if I couldn't find my way in this stupid- woah!_" He exclaimed once they cleared the hallway and entered a tower. "_Look at that! Look, look! The stairs are moving around, Temari!_"

"Naruto!" She yelled when he rushed past the whole lot of the other students and jumped onto the closest stair.

"_Check it out. It's moving on its own._" He called, jumping up a few steps and bending over the railing to get a better look, just in case something or someone was hiding under it to move the structure this way and that. "_Huh, how's that even possible? Huh, Temari?_"

Clonk!

Naruto's head spun a little when he was hit over the head none too gently. Rubbing the sore spot he turned to glare at Temari whom was glaring back with equal force.

"_What the hell was that for?_" He asked.

"_For being an idiot._" The blond girl barked back. "_You're behaving like a damn rookie fresh out of training. We've got a mission so stop drawing so much attention!_"

They glared back and forth at each other for a while before Naruto finally grunted. "_Fine. But you didn't have to hit me that hard._"

"_Bonus._" Temari smirked.

Meanwhile the rest of the students were trudging up the stairs. The redhead was pointing his finger to somewhere above and Naruto assumed that was where they were going so he filed in and played the obedient sheep. For now. Tomorrow, oh yeah, tomorrow he'd have a proper look around this place. Maybe he'd even manage to hunt down that armoured paint guy, he thought and grinned. Glancing at Temari he saw that that bushy haired girl was talking to her, looking somewhat upset.

"-not hitting-" he heard he say and pricked his ears. Snickering he realised that the girl was telling Temari off for hitting him. Hehehe.

"Whatever." Temari replied brusquely, abruptly interrupting the other girl and pushing past other students to walk somewhere at the front of the pack. The bushy haired stared after and for a moment she looked like she might hurry after her and continue her tirade but then she just frowned and waved a bunch of other students ahead while she walked at the end of the group. Naruto flashed a grin at the bushy haired girl before scampering after the rest of the students.

Eventually, after trudging up several moving stairwells, the redhead up front stopped in front of a portrait of a fat woman. This painted woman waved at them, crooning something that Naruto didn't catch, and he wondered if all the painted people could move and talk.

"So tell- fat- password- Mimbulus mim-tonia." The redhead said and the fat woman curtseyed and said something before the portrait opened to the side and revealed a passage. Naruto grinned in delight. A secret passage! That was so cool.

Soon enough the students were filing in, all except Temari and the two older students talking in excited whispers.

Naruto felt equally giddy as the rest when he passed through the portrait hole. He was in a house that had a secret passage and…

Naruto stopped short, some of the younger students behind him bumping into him when he saw what lay beyond the passage. The large room and fireplace barely registered in his brain because there was really only one thing his mind was ready to process. In the middle of the room stood a man that was transparent. He was speaking and coming closer and he was… he was… a ghost!

* * *

Snape was not a popular teacher, that much Temari had managed to deduce while eating breakfast that morning. From what she'd heard most of her 'house' considered the man evil, although she had decided that their opinion of evil and hers probably differed greatly. At any rate she was happy for the class, seeing as it was a joint class with the… oh, what did they call it? The house Gaara had been sorted into.

She hadn't been happy about Gaara being sorted into a different house than either herself or Kankurou the night previously. True, he had been… better… or at least more stable the last couple of months since the chuunin exams but… well, there always was a but in play where her littlest brother was concerned.

She descended the stairs leading to the dungeon with much more eagerness than any of her so called housemates. Apart from Naruto of course, since he had already bounced ahead of her. The blond had been a bit put out – theatrically so – when he'd realised that they didn't serve ramen at Hogwarts, but after some – excessive- grumbling, muttering and general grouchiness about the ineptitude of English cooking he'd still managed to devour more food than anyone else at their table. And probably any other table as well.

It wasn't hard to find her little brother amongst the other students. Even dressed in the generic black robes his hair alone stood out like a beacon. Ino was standing next to him, and from what it looked like she was holding court for a small group of girls.

"_Hey, Gaara!"_ Naruto was already rushing down to join them, attracting curious stares from the other students. _"Ino! What's up? Are your bedrooms as awesome as ours? Ours at the top of a tower. How cool is that, huh? They don't have any ramen, though, stupid English…" _

Six months ago Temari would've feared for the poor guy's life, six months ago it wouldn't have been a stretch to think Gaara would just crush him like an annoying bug. Somehow though Naruto had changed things. He'd changed Gaara. It was still a tentative change but still somehow profound and the way she saw it, it was a debt that she'd never be able to repay. That little fool had done what she and Kankurou couldn't, and she was just grateful that someone finally managed to reach Gaara.

"Naruto!" Ino's shriek was loud enough to echo between the walls, causing even more people to turn and watch. "Stop rambling, can't you see we're talking? _Che_, _really, you're so rude_."

"Ah… ah… sorry, Ino-chan." The blond boy quickly apologised, waving his hands in a disarming manner. When Ino, mollified, humphed and turned back to resume talking to her new friends, Naruto scratched his head, turned to Gaara and said: _"Wasn't like I was talking to her anyway. Really, talk about overreacting, ne, Gaara?" _

Whether or not her brother was considering replying didn't matter as Ino swung around again, a deadly glint in her eye.

"Naruto, I swear…"

"Merlin's beard, they're the one's making all that noise? Thought a war broke out down there." Ron, having come down the stairs, said next to her.

"Yeah, Snape'll go mad." Harry said moodily.

"What're they even arguing about? I can't understand half of what they're bloody saying."

"They're speaking Japanese, or at least Naruto is." Hermione replied, sending Ron a look that Temari at least would label condescending. "I think he really struggles with our language. We should help him out."

"Why the bloody hell should we do that?" Ron asked, startled.

"Because, Ron," the girl said with more patience that Temari would've been able to muster. "He's a fellow Gryffindor and he needs help. Besides, how is he supposed to keep up with schoolwork if he can't speak the language? Honestly, you'd think Professor Dumbledore would've done something to help him. Maybe there's some translation charm that… "

"I still don't see how that's any of our…"

Hermione seemed to be about to reply when a loud shout of "Naruto!" interrupted them. Turning her head Temari saw that Ino gearing up for a world class punch to the other blonde's face when Gaara pushed off the wall and stepped between them.

"Stop."

And that was all it took for Ino and Naruto to straighten up; Ino looking slightly embarrassed and Naruto looking smug. Her brother didn't even bother looking at either of them, instead looking up, locking eyes with her. "Temari."

"Yeah, Gaara?"

He opened his mouth to say something, then cocked his head slightly to the side, as if listening, and shook his head: "_Never mind_."

Less than a second later the door to the potion classroom opened and a tall, thin man dressed completely in black stood there. Black eyes glared at them from a pale, thin face, and she had the instant impression that this was a man that spent his life with an angry look upon his face. Every student stood stock still when his glare passed over them, one, she thought his name was Neville, visibly cringed in fear.

"I assume, now that the deafening screeching has ceased, that whatever inane discussion was being conducted has been settled." He spoke softly, his voice deep and sharp. "You." His eyes settled on Naruto. "Explain to me why I've spent the past five minutes listening to a cacophony of mindless teenaged blabber."

Naruto, looking very much like a genin with a kunai at his throat, opened his mouth; "Er… sorry… er… _oh man, oh man, help me out here guys, how am I supposed to explain anything when I can't speak this dumb language?_"

"Very enlightening, Mr Uzumaki." Snape said, silkily. "Ten points from Gryffindor for fighting and the failure to vocalize the reason for doing so."

Obviously the man was not interested in explanations after all and since Naruto didn't really seem to understand what had just happened they avoided another longwinded fight. A moment later he waved them into the classroom. The room was dark and dank; every wall filled with rows of shelves that held containers of all sorts, that themselves seemed to hold ingredients that she would've imagined belonging in the lair of a mad scientist. Deciding to go with the flow Temari followed the other Gryffindor students' example and filed to one side of the room while the rest – ah, that's right their house were called Slytherin – filed to the other side.

"Settle down." Snape said, although as far as she could tell it wasn't necessary. It was so quiet that she could hear people breathing. Obviously this man was a no nonsense kind of teacher and the students knew it well.

Temari soon found out that she was utterly crap at this potion business. Starting out she'd figured it couldn't be that hard, kind of like cooking really. Not that she was a kage-class chef but she could manage feed herself, regardless of what Kankurou said. At any rate Potion making and cooking was nothing alike.

"A light silver vapour should now be rising from your potion," Snape just said, and with rising frustration Temari noted that hers was spitting lightning. Damn it all. Looking around the room she was somewhat relieved to note that she at least was not the only one having problems – hell Naruto's cauldron was emitting black smoke and flames that were steadily growing larger and hotter, leaving the blond shinobi scuttling about like a terrified hare while trying to calm it.

Snape had thankfully spotted it too as he quickly strode over and waved his wand at it. There was a deafening boom a second later, causing the students to duck their heads. The explosion had been contained within some sort of barrier though, and the only damage done was to Naruto's cauldron which had… scattered into a hundred pieces or so.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor, Mr Uzumaki, for attempting to kill every single being with a pulse within a two mile radius." Snape snapped, clearly annoyed.

"Er… sorry, sorry," Naruto said grinning and waving his hands around in apology. He probably didn't entirely understand what Snape had said to him but had to have caught the gist of it. Kind of hard not to with that vulture glaring at him. "_Than_… er… thank you." He continued, gesturing to the cauldron, then at the room at large. "No...er… no boom!"

"Kindly cease your inane blabbering until you've learnt to speak the language, Mr Uzumaki. I have not time nor patience to listen." Snape snapped, turning away and marching on. He looked positively murderous.

Naruto turned and gave Temari a grin and a thumb up. She shook her head. He really needed to be taught English; she thought and glared furiously down at her own cauldron. Oh well, at least her concoction didn't seem about to explode.

Sneaking a glance across the room at Gaara she started, blinked hard once and hoped her jaw wasn't hanging open. The little brat's cauldron was emitting that fabled silver vapour Snape had talked about. Not shabby coming from a brat that couldn't fry an egg to save his life.

* * *

"How did you do that? Make that wretched potion, I mean." Temari asked her little brother the moment they stepped out of the classroom.

"I followed the instructions." He responded, the deadpan monotone indicating he thought it was a very dumb question.

Temari bit the inside of her cheek, hard, and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Her little brother had a way of misinterpreting the gesture.

"Come on." He said and led the way up the stairs.

They walked together, side by side, until they reached the Great Hall. For whatever reason the fact that they were walking side by side seemed to catch a lot of attention amongst the other students, causing whispering and some finger pointing to follow in their wake.

"_What the hell's their problem?"_ Temari muttered, sending glares left and right at the offenders.

"_Slytherin and Gryffindor are at war."_ Gaara replied.

"_War?"_ Temari barked an astonished laugh. _"These people have no idea what war is. Not a single one of them would survive five seconds in an actual battle." _

Her brother looked up at her, then around at the other students._ "They believe that Gryffindors and Slytherins shouldn't speak to each other." _

"_What, because we could exchange sensitive information?"_ She asked, mockingly.

_Gaara said nothing which she took as an affirmative. _

"_Tsk, just when I thought these magic folk couldn't get any dumber…"_ she muttered, shaking her head. "Whatever. " She said and turned to walk toward the Gryffindor table, waving a hand casually over he shoulder. "See ya, Gaara. And eat a proper meal, will you?"

She didn't turn to watch him, but she got the intense impression that he scoffed at that last part and she smiled. Gaara was more fun being around when she didn't need to worry overmuch about getting buried under a ton of sand on a whim.

Hermione glanced at her when she sat down next to her, but then quickly chose to ignore her. Still annoyed with her then, Temari deduced but couldn't find it in her to particularly care.

"Why were you talking to that Slytherin?" Ron asked. The redhead was seated two seats down the table, next to Harry. Now he was leaning forward, sending her a suspicious look.

"Why would that be any of your business?" Temari snapped back, glaring.

"Ron, honestly, how rude can you be?" Hermione asked, sounding exasperated. Temari had the impression that the girl wasn't defending her in any way, only that she was annoyed at her friend's bluntness.

"Well, she was talking to that Slytherin and you know how Slytherins are." Ron defended himself. Poorly, in Temari's opinion. "Evil the whole lot of them."

"Gaara's my brother." Temari said tonelessly.

"Gaara no evil." Naruto's voice spoke up at the same time. Crappy English aside it didn't leave any doubt to the intended meaning. Where he had been seated across from them he was now standing, hands on the table and glaring vehemently at Ron. Temari couldn't help the smile that curled her lips. It was nice to see someone other than herself or Kankurou standing up for Gaara. Literally in this case.

"You know, being in Slytherin doesn't automatically make someone evil, Ron." Hermione said, adopting a lecturing tone of voice. Under the weight of their combined glares Ron seemed to hunch down in his seat. "Just like being in Gryffindor doesn't make someone bold. Just look at that squirming rat Wormtail."

That last part was said in a hiss but the words had no little impact, causing Ron to go red in the face and stammer while Harry's back stiffened. She also noticed his fist closing tight around the utensils these people used, so tight in fact that his knuckles grew white with strain. Shooting a quick look Naruto's way she noted that he'd noticed as well.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Harry." Hermione apologised quickly. "I didn't mean…"

"It's alright. It's true, right?" Harry muttered moodily and resumed eating. Hermione and Ron exchanged a look over his head and then, apparently deciding on a truce, also went back to eating.

"Don't worry about Ron." Hermione said to her and Naruto both. "He can be a complete troll sometimes."

"Yeah, I know a guy like that too." Temari said with a smirk, thinking of Kankurou who had definitive troll like tendencies. Provided that a troll was the equivalent of a loudmouthed dumbass, at least. It was a tendency that did have its uses though, particularly in uniting people and making them forget old slights even if it was only in the name of defeating a common enemy. At that moment Temari did get the impression that the other girl was willing to forgive their little spat. Unwilling to let the witch-girl slide back into remembering that she was annoyed at her Temari pointed at Hermione's plate: "Is that any good?"

"Well I like it." She replied. "It's Shepard's pie."

Temari hummed, reaching for the very same dish on the table and piling it onto her own plate. "You want some, Naruto?"

The blond sighed heavily, sitting back down finally. _"Still no ramen. What's wrong with these people? Don't they know what ramen's the best food ever?" _

"_Ramen, ramen, ramen…"_ Temari huffed. "Is that all you ever think about? _I'm getting sick of hearing you complain about ramen. Shut up and eat._"

"_Gah! It's not my fault! I haven't had ramen for weeks, I'm going through withdrawal."_ Naruto continued complaining even as he piled his own Shepard's pie on a plate._ "Beautiful, wonderful ramen. With extra pork and eggs. And…" _

Temari shook her head while Naruto continued his ode to ramen. It was just her luck to end up on the same team as a noodle obsessed brat.

"What's he talking about?" Hermione asked. "I mean, what's this _ramen_ thing? He's been saying that a lot."

"Yeah, like every single meal." Ron commented.

"It's a dish." Temari replied with a shrug. "It's no big deal, Naruto's just… he just really like ramen a lot." When Hermione sent Naruto a look that clearly said 'no kidding', she decided it was time to change topic. "Snape doesn't like Harry much, does he?"

"You mean in class…? I guess… He's never liked Harry, no." Hermione admitted, glancing at Harry who looked as cranky as ever.

"He loathes me." Harry clarified.

"Snape hates all Gryffindors. It's the only way for him to gets his jollies, I'd wager." Ron grumbled.

"Honestly, Ron, I'm sure the Professor doesn't hate Harry," Hermione said and when her two friends both turned their heads to stare at her with equal amounts of astonishment she quickly continued. "I mean, if he did would he really be helping with… you know. But it really was unfair of him to vanish your potion Harry." Hermione amended. "I did think he'd be better this year."

"Poisonous toadstools don't change their spots." Ron said sagely. "Anyway I always thought Dumbledore was cracked to trust…"

"Ron!" Hermione's voice interrupted him sharply. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they were talking about the order of the phoenix and the role Snape played in it. Temari had to fight the urge to roll her eyes and thought that these kids wouldn't have survived a minute in the elemental countries.

"Oh, shut up the both of you." Harry said suddenly, interrupting the bickering that had passed to and fro between Hermione and Ron regarding how much loathing Snape really had for Gryffindors. Abruptly he stood from his seat and snatched up his schoolbag. "Can't you give it a rest? You're always having a go at each other, it's driving me mad."

With that he marched off and out of the Great Hall. Temari followed him with her eye, wondering if she should follow him but decided that it'd look suspicious if she did.

"What the bloody hell was that all about?" Ron said, baffled.

"He's in a bad mood." Hermione said, sounding a bit annoyed. "Because of the whole You-Know-Who business and with Seamus and now Snape, but I'd prefer it if he didn't take his temper out on us."

"Yeah, that's for bloody sure." Ron agreed, turning back to his meal which was almost finished now anyway. "I get it, you know. Why he's in a bad mood and all, but it's not like it's our fault. We're on his side, right?"

"Right." Hermione agreed. Then she turned to Temari again. "So how about eight o'clock tonight?"

"What about it?" Temari asked, truly baffled.

"English class for Naruto. I thought perhaps you could… help out a little, you know translate and such. If you want that is?"

Yeah, she was well and truly forgiven, Temari decided.

"What?" Naruto interrupted, obviously he'd overheard them mentioning his name. _"What're you guys talking about?"_

"I guess we never asked him if it was alright with him." Hermione said somewhat contritedly.

"I'll do it now." Temari brushed off her concerns easily and locked a commanding glare on Naruto. _"You. Eight o'clock. Tonight. Common room. Got it?"_

"_What happens tonight?" _He replied doubtfully.

"_You're learning how to speak English._" She said brusquely, stood up and marched off. She had another lesson to get to.

* * *

She met up with Kankurou high up in one of the towers, where he was leaning against a wall while looking out a window. To anyone else he'd look just like any other bored student but Temari noted the little signs that told her that he was keeping a careful eye on Harry. The student in question was standing some ways further up, close to what looked like a door in the ceiling. He looked as moody as ever.

"_Yo, Kankurou."_ She said as she ascended the stairs towards her other little brother, and he turned his head to give her a lazy smirk.

"_Hey."_ He offered in ways of response. _"So how's magic school treating ya, Temari?" _

"_It's annoying."_ She replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest casually. _"All of these kids, they're our age more or less but they behave like children not yet out of training."_ Then she smirked. _"It was a treat watching Naruto come face to face with the teacher in History of Magic this morning though." _

"_Oh yeah? What's he like?"_ Kankurou asked, interest poked awake.

"_He's a ghost."_ She revealed watching with some satisfaction as his eyebrows rose on his forehead. _"And, here's the kicker, Naruto's terrified of ghosts."_

Kankurou gave a howl of laughter at that, causing Harry and several other students to look his way.

"_Oh man, I wish I'd have seen that!" _

"_Che, it took me five minutes to chase his sorry ass down and get him back to the classroom. And last night he fled from that house ghost thing too."_ Temari said, rolling her eyes. Never the less the smirk didn't leave her lips.

"_Scared of a teacher…"_ Kankurou snickered. _"A ghost teacher… that kid never ceases to amaze me. He went head to head with Gaara without a second thought but he's scared of a fucking ghost teacher."_

"_Yeah well, he is an idiot."_ Temari supplied.

"_Yeah…"_ Kankurou agreed, shaking his head and they exchanged a look that said it all. Idiot or not he had saved their brother. Somehow. _"Oh man, sounds like you got the better end of the deal there. At least you get some action. My house is full of…_ Hey, watch it!"

The last part was directed at the redhead that accidentally bumped into him on his way past them. Instantly Kankurou was in offensive mode and Temari sighed when she saw who had bumped into him. Ron. Of course. It must be fate.

"Are you blind or something?" Kankurou drawled, scowling at Ron who scowled back. "Can't you see I'm standing here, brat?"

Ron seemed to be about to retort so Temari, knowing her brother's temper, stepped in before the situation escalated. "Cut it out, Kankurou. It was a damn accident."

From the look her brother sent her she could tell he did not want to 'cut it out', the dumbass really was itching for a fight. Without remorse she elbowed him hard in the side and glared at him. Kankurou grunted and looked more than a little disgruntled but eventually he held up his hand: "Yeah. Alright. Sorry 'bout overreacting for ya nearly knocking me down the damn stairs."

Temari rolled her eyes. "This is my brother Kankurou. He's an idiot."

Kankurou shot her a dirty look but she ignored him.

"Uh, yeah. Sure." Ron muttered. "Sorry about barely touching you, mate." She just knew Kankurou was going to protest that so she elbowed him again. "Anyway, I thought that sl… er, redhead was your brother."

"Gaara? Yeah, he is. Can't a person have more than one?" She shrugged.

"Well, yeah. I've got a whole bunch. You know Fred and George? They're my brothers and then there's Charlie and Bill as well. And Percy." That last name was said with some disdain. "It's just, you're all in the same year and you don't exactly look like twins, or triplets, or whatever."

Temari was surprised. She'd have figured that if any of the people she'd talked to so far would've asked about it, it would've been Hermione. Certainly not Ron. She was still waiting for someone to ask about their not very Asian looking hair and features.

"Yeah, well it was this whole thing about transferring grades and shit." Kankurou said nonchalantly – giving the agreed upon explanation. "Didn't seem to translate well between our old school and Hogwarts so they just chucked the lot of us into the same year."

"Yeah. Alright." Ron nodded, starting up the stairs again. "Class is starting."

Looking up she saw that he was right; the rest of the students had already disappeared up the ladder that led into the ceiling.

"_Let's go, dumbass."_ She smirked at Kankurou and followed Ron.

She heard Kankurou muttering something – probably nothing flattering – while she climbed the ladder but chose to ignore him. She had better things to…

"_What the hell!"_ She exclaimed, nearly choking on the smell of perfume, or possibly incense, when she reached the top of the ladder. Coughing she forced herself the rest of the way up, and suddenly grateful for the wide sleeves of the robes she wore she covered her nose and mouth with it.

"_What is it?"_ Kankurou asked from below, he was halfway up the ladder.

"_Come on up and find out."_ She replied bitterly. If she had to deal with the nasty surprise of this room her brother sure as hell would too.

Seconds later she heard him cussing and his face appeared above the hatch.

"_Fuck, what's that smell?"_ he complained, scrunching up his face in distaste and causing several other students to snicker. Although they couldn't understand a word it was pretty obvious what the problem was for the two new and unsuspecting students. Pushing his way up Kankurou managed to not cough or gag but the annoyance on his face was clear. "Smells like shit up here."

At that comment, unfortunately spoken in English, the class erupted in laughter, all except for a couple of girls that were sitting together and sent Kankurou nasty glares. Temari, however, couldn't agree more. Perhaps it wasn't as bad for the other students but for any shinobi worth their grain it was less than pleasant. She'd be surprised if she got out of this class without a headache.

"Good-day." A dreamy voice said and a scrawny woman walked into the room. Dressed in all sorts of colours, bangles and glitter, along with a pair of large glasses she reminded Temari of one of those rare sun-beetles in the western parts of Suna. "And welcome back to Divination. And a first welcome to my new students. Please have a seat."

Groaning inwardly Temari went further into the room and settled onto one of the cushions, Kankurou crashed down next to her, holding his head. At least she wouldn't be the only one with a headache after this, she thought and felt a little better for that.

To be honest she didn't listen much to what the teacher was saying after that, the smell in this room was just too bad to be able to concentrate, until they were doing what the mad woman called 'dream interpretation' and she somehow managed to turn Kankurou's dream about building a puppet army into meaning his impending death.

When the class was finally over the shinobi were the first two down the ladder and were a far stretch down the stairs before coming to a halt, both breathing in deep gulps of fresh air.

"_Never again…"_ Kankurou decided, massaging his temples.

"_We have to."_ She replied and leaned heavily against a wall. Kami-sama knew she hated herself for saying that.

"_Fuck…" _Kankurou groaned.

"_Yeah…" _She agreed.

"Blimey, you guys look really sick." Ron's voice sounded and moments later both he and Harry was in front of them, peering at them. "Sure you're alright? Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey?"

"Don't tell me that's another crazy bug lady." Kankurou groaned, straightening up. "Besides we're fine."

"If it's about her predicting your death, don't worry. She does that all the time." Harry said.

"Yeah, she's predicted Harry's death - what is it, mate? Ten times?" Ron agreed, grinning.

Harry shrugged.

Temari snorted and straightened as well now that the urge to heave had lifted. "Obviously the woman's a fraud. Why the hell do they keep someone like that as a teacher?"

"Who cares?" Ron said. "It's the easiest subject we've got; all we've got to do is make up some dreams and pretend they mean something. If homework keeps piling up like this we're going to need at least one easy subject."

"Come on. We should get going so we're not late for Defence." Harry said and began his descent. Ron quickly joined him.

"_You should get going._" Kankurou drawled. "_Don't want to keep the pink hag waiting._"

Temari huffed out a none-word reply and stalked off after her housemates.

* * *

Numbers.

So many numbers.

Even a good while after finally getting out of that class – Arimacy? Or something like that – he could still feel an almost physical sensation of panic just thinking about all those numbers. They were still swirling around in his head like ghouls. If Hermione – lovely, wonderful Hermione - hadn't been there to help him he'd have gone mad. That lazy bum Shikamaru hadn't been any help at all. Still he suspected that something was wrong with him being dumped in a class consisting of eggheads – he'd had a look at the people taking that other course – Div-something or other – and they seemed like the less academically inclined types. Ron, whom he hadn't liked all that much since he made that comment about Gaara, took that class after all and he didn't look all that smart. And if Kankurou could do it he was certain it couldn't be that hard.

Shaking his head he dispelled any further numbers crawling around in it and decided to focus on the next class. Defence Against the Dark Arts.

This time the grin came to him easily. Finally he'd get a chance at seeing how these magical people fought! Maybe it'd even help him in learning a new awesome jutsu in the future – yeah, that'd show that snake-bastard Orochimaru. He wouldn't know what hit him!

By the time he and the other Gryffindors that had been in the same class reached the Defence classroom Naruto was excited. Even the sweet but false smile on the toad lady's face didn't discourage him – in his mind there was no way that even a really bad teacher could completely muck up this class.

It didn't take him very long to figure out that he'd been mistaken when she set them the task of reading – reading! – for the start of the class. As if anyone would learn anything about defence from a book!

To make matters worse the book was written in English and he while he'd started to snatch up more and more words from listening to people talk he still couldn't read the language. Groaning he eventually banged his head against the heavy tome and wished he'd never accepted this mission – this was worse than when Iruka…

"Naruto." Painstakingly looking up he saw that Hermione had he wand out. " – me help -."

Scrunching up his face in confusion he didn't sit back until she retrieved her stick from her robes and carefully, probably so the toad lady wouldn't notice, pointed it at his book. Then she said something he didn't understand in a low voice and nodded at the book.

Looking back down Naruto let out a sound of surprise when the previously incomprehensible drivel written there made perfect sense. Well at least in the sense that he could actually read these characters.

Grinning wide at the witch he decided that Hermione was the best magical person in existence. Alright! Now all he had to do was to read…

…Chapter one, Basics for Beginners? Hold on, hadn't these people been taking this type of class for years? They were still at beginners' level?

Confused he turned towards Hermione again and found her staring straight ahead and holding her hand up in the air. Curious at what she was doing he craned his neck and followed her gaze straight to… the toad lady. Ah, Naruto got it now; she was trying to get the teacher's attention.

On the other hand the pink clad woman was ignoring her – deliberately it seemed and he was not the only one to have noticed. Actually the majority of the students were watching Hermione now, having given up on reading. Which Naruto could understand wholeheartedly. Bah, reading when they should be training on some cool new moves! On an impulse he shot his own hand up, flashing a grin at Hermione when she looked at him. Hey, she'd helped him now it was time for him to help her – that was his way of the ninja.

Eventually, when there were almost none left reading; the toad lady finally gave up and turned to Hermione.

"- to ask something - chapter, dears?"

"Not - chapter, no." Hermione replied and when Temari elbowed him Naruto took down his hand and glared at her. She smirked at him and crossed her arms. She's such a sadistic girl; he thought and remembered the battle between her and Tenten at the exams. When she caught Tenten across that monstrous fan of hers Naruto had been almost sure she had broken something. Tenten must've had bruises on her back for a month afterwards.

"Hermione Granger." Hermione said next to him and he looked her way again, realising that he'd missed out on a large part of the conversation between his latest friend and the toad lady.

"- Miss Granger, I think- perfectly clear if - read-" Said the toad lady and her voice were sweeter than usual.

"- I don't." Hermione replied. Her face and voice were both set in a determined scowl and Naruto silently cheered her on. "There's - written on- using defensive spells."

At that there was a short silence and Naruto noticed that many of his peers turned their eyes to look at the blackboard where the toad lady had scribbled three lines earlier. None of which he could read.

"_Temari what's going on? Why's everyone looking at the board? Did she write something dirty?_" he asked.

"_No,_" The girl replied and frowned. "_But that pink hag up there hasn't written anything about using any spells for this class._"

"_Not using any spells? But it's a defence class._" Naruto said, craning his neck to take a look at the lines written on the board before remembering that he still couldn't read them.

"Using defensive spells?" The toad lady interrupted the questions he wanted to ask and Temari gestured for him to hold it. With an extreme amount of self-discipline worthy of any shinobi he bit his tongue and let the toad lady say her piece. "- I can't - - any - - in- classroom that would - - - use - defensive spell, Miss Granger. - surely - - to be attacked - class?"

"_Damn._" Temari hissed.

"_What? What is it? What's the toad lady saying?_" Naruto asked in a whisper that probably only Temari could hear.

"_The hag has no intention of letting any of these brats use defensive spells._" Temari said, her frown not decreasing a bit. In fact she looked down right angry at this point.

"_What_?" He exclaimed loudly.

"- not- to use magic?" Ron that was seated in front of them said at the same time and equally as loud.

"Students - hands when- - - to speak in - class, Mr -?" The toad lady said, eyeing them both sternly.

"Weasley." Ron said and thrust his hand in the air while the toad lady looked expectantly at Naruto. He stared back.

"Uzumaki." Temari said, making him turn his head and wonder what she wanted. But the other blond wasn't looking at him; she was looking at the teacher. " - doesn't speak English -. _Put your hand up_. _It'll annoy her._" She hissed the last part at him while raising her own hand.

Still a bit confused over this latest exchange he did as he was told; he sure didn't mind annoying the toad lady. Umbridge smiled widely and turned her back on them. Next to him Hermione raised her hand and right in front Harry did the same. Alright, these people had spunk!

The toad lady's eyes lingered on Harry for a moment and then on him before addressing Hermione again.

"Yes, Miss Granger? - wanted to ask something -?"

"Yes." Said Hermione. " Surely - - point - Defence Against the Dark Arts is to - defensive spells?"

Naruto, who was reasonably certain he got the gist of that, nodded along fervently. Training before books – everyone knew that! Except for Kakashi who tried to combine them and Pervy-sage who claimed to be a writer on a quest for research – but they were both perverts and he was pretty certain that the toad lady never would try to peek into the men's bath.

"No, but -" Hermione replied to whatever litany the toad lady had laid out – Naruto had only managed to pick up the occasional word, the most damning being 'Ministry'.

" - I'm afraid - - to - what - - point –"

Naruto shook his head furiously – not being able to understand more than half of the words being spoken, or even less when they started using the more difficult ones, was driving him insane.

Next to him Temari stood up abruptly, banging her hand down on the desk forcefully while she stared straight at the teacher.

"Secure - risk-free - don't go hand in hand with danger, Professor Umbridge. How - - to prepare for - if we only read -?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Naruto agreed, glad that his fellow shinobi might understand English better than he but at least steered clear of most too difficult words. "_Tell her that we need to practice real fighting and defence! _"

"_I just did_." Temari snapped at him, still glaring at the teacher.

"Told - to - - hand, Miss Sabaku." The toad lady admonished. For a second Temari looked more inclined to punch the woman in the nose, then her jaw tensed in a determined and angry expression and she sat down with a thump and thrust her hand up. Naruto wondered if the toad lady had a death wish - the only one worse to tick off than Temari would be Gaara. Come to think of it that woman better not tick off Gaara tomorrow when he'd be in this very class for the first time. Nah, what were the chances of that happening?

By now a lot of other people had their hands in the air too and the toad lady turned to Dean, one of the boys that Naruto shared a room with.

Again the toad lady slapped his protests about the lack of training aside, asking him if he expected to be attacked in class.

"I do not wish to - - way things - been run in - school." She said loudly when he tried to protest again. " but - - been - to some very irresponsible wizards in - class, very irresponsible -. Not to mention - dangerous half-"

Again Dean attempted to protest only to have the woman bark "Hand, Mr Thomas!" at him and he thrust his hand up again.

"- been frightened into believing - - are likely to - Dark attacks every - day."

"No we -" Hermione interrupted only to be told once again to get her hand in the air. Naruto glared furiously at the toad lady, frustrated that he couldn't add any fuel to the fire just because of such a stupid thing as a language.

Not long after that there was a shocked silence in the room when Harry said that Dark Wizard's name aloud and the toad lady took points from Gryffindor in retaliation. When she proceeded to explain how the rumours about Voldemort's return were all lies though Harry became furious. Soon enough he was handed detention and sent to McGonagall's office.

"_Damn it_." Temari muttered next to him while all around them students went back to reading.

"_What_?" Naruto whispered but the only answer he received was a '_later, brat_.'

* * *

"_I don't see what the big deal it_." Naruto insisted stubbornly when a while later they were walking from class.

"_It's a big deal because we'll need to find a way to keep watch over him while he's in detention._" Temari said curtly and began climbing the stairs to the Gryffindor tower. "_You don't trust that woman do you?_"

Naruto shook his head with every fibre of seriousness he possessed. "_Nu-huh, the toad lady is a creep. But it's still not a problem, I'll just do a henge and-_"

"_And what? The way I understand this detention thing it'll just be her and Potter in the room while she punishes him – even one of these magic folk could notice you in the room. It's too risky. If you're caught you'd blow our cover_. _Not to mention that it'd be in front of someone that we don't need to know about us- hell we don't want her to even know about shinobi._"

"_Oh yeah? You got a better idea?_" Naruto challenged, glaring at her because he was convinced he really could surveillance one measly Harry Potter under the beady eyes of the toad lady.

"_Gaara could do it._" Temari said suddenly, sounding very certain.

"_Yeah?_" Naruto asked with an interest that he tried to mask; wondering what it was that Gaara could do that was so great and that he couldn't. "_How?_"

Temari didn't answer but instead quickened her steps up the stairs. "_Come on. We'll talk to him tomorrow._"

"_Wait! Hey, what'll Gaara do?_" Naruto asked again, quickly forgetting that he was annoyed at the other shinobi as he scrambled after her. "_Come on, Temari, tell me! Tell your old buddy Naruto what Gaara will do. Is it a ninjutsu? Can he turn himself into sand and sneak under the door?_"

An image of Gaara dissolving into thousands grains of sand flashed in his mind and he pulled a face. Nah, there was no way Gaara could do that. Right?

"_Temari, come on!_"

* * *

**Author's notes**:

I have some musings regarding the Naruto characters that I thought I should share.

First of in this little story of mine they're supposed to still be genin, so they'll behave (hopefully) more like they do during the chuunin exams. I imagine this to take place not that long after the chuuning exams actually.

Naruto I think is the one that this will be the noticeable in (if compared with the shippuden episodes). I've always liked Naruto as a kid though – it's so easy to take him for a complete blockhead (truthfully he can be) but then he'll sprout out absolute brilliance on occasion. I love a hero that's not omnipotent and uber-strong but rather needs help and teamwork to succeed on occasion.

Oh, and thanks for the reviews! Very much appreciated.

I changed the chapter – I wasn't very happy with it. Heh, that's me. Sorry to anyone that preferred it the other way but I want to feel semi-satisfied with something before moving on. I feel a little better about it now. Still slightly annoyed with it too but you reach a point sometimes when you just got to let it go, you know?

Heh, my computer wanted to "correct" my spelling of Pervy-sage into Percy-sage, that made me oddly happy. Very weird imagery ensued.


	3. Chapter 3

Going Magic

Chapter 3: The making of friends

Characters: Gaara, Temari, Kankurou – gotta love the sandsibs – Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru and well, all the magic folk they run into over time

Pairings: Hmm, well they're kids so not so much. Possibly slight Temari/Shikamaru, and by the same definition you could consider there to be equally slight Hermione/Ron… I guess?

Set: Before Shippuden. During Book 5, Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter

Note: It's been a good long while since I read HP so I'll probably be fuzzy on several details – however since I'll be writing primarily from the Naruto characters' POV I hope this won't be too annoying. The plotline would be altered if a gang of shinobi would enter the scene, right?

Warning: Crossover? Is that qualified to be a warning?

_Italics_ – Japanese

* * *

Bang!

Ino shrieked and instinctively leaped into a battle stance while every other student covered their ears and ducked. A moment later she straightened when she realised that they were not under attack – unless you counted the complete obliteration of a snail and the better part of a desk an attack.

"_What did you do?_" She blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

Gaara glanced at her, his face set in a frown, and held up his wand in a silent answer.

"Mr Sabaku!" Professor McGonagall said sternly, briskly swooping down on Gaara. "What in the world do you think you're doing?"

Ino glanced around the rest of the room, noting that the rest of the students were watching the scene with avid interest. Not surprising really; somehow Ino had the impression that people didn't usually blow up their desks in this class. This wasn't Potions.

Gaara, ever the cynic, looked at McGonagall for a long moment before replying: "Magic."

Ino felt like banging her head against something hard. Really, how difficult could it be to act normal and give a normal explanation, excuse or… anything other than a blunt one word answer?

The other students were snickering and whispering now, probably under the impression that Gaara was being cheeky to a teacher. The other Slytherins looked especially mirthful at the prospect; Draco and Blaise grinning and leaning forward.

"I don't appreciate cheek, Mr Sabaku." McGonagall warned.

Gaara blinked and said nothing.

Groaning inwardly Ino decided it was time for her to intervene before Gaara got himself thrown in detention for the rest of the term.

"Professor McGonagall," She said, plastering on her most convincing face of regret. "We're not used to your way of casting spells." At that she heard more whispers around the room, probably the other students wondering what other way there was to cast spells. "It takes some getting used to. I'm sure Gaara didn't mean to… blow up the desk or being cheeky."

The witch stared at them both sternly. Realising that the redhead had no intention of backing up her claims up or even offer a show of remorse Ino nudged him with her elbow and sent him a meaningful look. Well, to anyone else it would've been meaningful, Gaara's frown only deepened and Ino wanted to smack him.

"_Just nod_." She hissed at him.

He glared at her and for another moment she was convinced he wouldn't raise a finger to help himself. Then he looked back up at McGonagall and nodded. Once and without even the slightest shift in expression but still Ino felt she'd just won a huge battle.

"Very well, Mr Sabaku. Fifteen points from Slytherin for demolishing school property." The stern witch said. "And do make an effort to be more careful in the future."

"He will." Ino quickly promised in Gaara's stead because she was sure he wouldn't. Honestly, the guy was driving her off the bend.

"Gaara." She said a while later when they were walking through the corridors in search for the History of Magic classroom. Well it wasn't much of a search; they were just following the throng of chatting Slytherins. Many of which had already taken turns to congratulate Gaara on a job well done in staring down the "Gryffindork hag".

Gaara stopped and looked at her, as she had come to expect, without saying a word.

"_You know_," She began, trying to be stern which was a feat in itself when confronted with that impassive stare. So she quickly scrapped the stern act and went for flippant; straightening up she placed a hand on her hip and sighed loudly. "_You should've just apologised. It's not like one tiny little apology is going to kill you, you know._"

From the corner of her eye she watched him, trying to decipher the slightest sign of… anything really. When there was no reaction she decided to plough on. "_If we're going to succeed on this mission we need to immerse ourselves as smoothly as possible with these people. We need to make them our friends._"

Finally she got a reaction when Gaara frowned and repeated softly: "_Friends?_"

He said the word as if it was a foreign concept – something abstract and something not to be grasped. Pursing her lips she tapped a finger against her lower lip in thought, trying to figure out how to get this guy to realise the rules of the game.

"_Yeah, you know, talk to them and hang out with them. Oh and try for a smile once in a while. Just play the social game. It's really not that- Hey, where're you going?_" She yelled after him when he turned on his heel and walked away.

Turning his head he said one word before continuing his trek: "_Class._"

Sighing Ino followed him. Silently she vowed not to let him off the hook that easily: one way or the other she would make him play the social game – whether he liked it or not.

* * *

**Defence Against the Dark Arts**

**A Return to Basic Principles**

Gaara had read and reread the words several times already, each time with a distinctive lack of interest. It was just something to do while he was thinking of other things – something to rest his eyes on. He didn't want to lower his gaze since if he did he'd have to look at the teacher and he found that woman… unsettling. So he stared at the words and thought of other things, mainly what Ino had told him yesterday after Transfiguration.

Blowing up that desk, while it had not been his plan to do so, hadn't surprised him. Other than his skills with his sand, something that came as easily as breathing to him, he'd never been very good at moulding specific chakra. Yasham – he'd been told that it was because of Shukaku, that somehow the beast within disrupted his chakra control and made everything not sand related that much more difficult for him. He suspected that the classes involving casting actual spells would prove interesting enough in the future. It made him wonder if Naruto would be any better at it – perhaps he had better control of his beast.

Still that was not something he could do much about, unless he figured out a way to keep Shukaku under better control. What was gnawing on his mind was Ino's declaration about how he should buckle down and start playing this social game of hers. He'd never been good at games. Actually he'd never been allowed to play them at all, so how he was supposed to go about playing this one he didn't know.

'Making friends' she'd said. Well, he didn't know how to do that either. He supposed that in a very backwards sort of way he might count Naruto as a friend but he didn't know how that relationship developed. He was pretty certain that none of these people would care to call him a friend if he attempted to kill them even if he would _let_ them to head butt him afterwards. He snorted at the thought.

"Yes, Mr… Ah, Mr Sabaku?" A too sweet voice interrupted his train of thought. Turning his head he stared at the teacher, already annoyed at the garish purple blouse and skirt, and the false smile on her podgy face. "Did you have a question about the chapter, dear? If so I would prefer if you merely held your hand up and refrained from any sort of huffing and puffing in my class."

Gaara's eyes narrowed. He did not like this woman, he had never liked being told what to do or what not to do and for a moment a flash of what he'd like to do to this woman burned behind his eyes. Across the room he spied Kankurou suddenly sitting up very straight in his seat, making gestures and mouthing silently to 'back the hell off', but he really didn't want to.

Then he felt a sting on his arm – not enough to hurt but still enough to disrupt his thoughts because of the sheer oddity of the sensation – and he looked down.

Ino, who was sitting next to him, smiled brightly and he realised that she'd just pinched him. "_Remember the social game._" She said in a whisper almost too low for even him to hear while he tried to gather his wits surrounding the odd interruption. People didn't touch him and he didn't touch them; that were the jargon of things.

"Mr Sabaku…" The sweet voice, laced with a little acid, began only to stop abruptly. He looked at her, noting the satisfied and somewhat condescending smile. "Yes, Mr Sabaku?"

Taking his hand back down, he replied: "No."

"No? " She asked, sounding surprised. "Whatever do you mean by that, dear?"

Gaara closed his eyes for a moment before forcing himself to explain. He hated to explain himself to people. "I don't have a question. I was… thinking."

"In that case I think we'll try this again. When I ask a question, I should like you to reply, "Yes, Professor Umbridge" or "No, Professor Umbridge". Go on don't be-"

Crash!

All around the classroom students ducked down and yelled in surprise when the skeleton of some sort of winged lizard that had been hanging from the ceiling came crashing down. It hit Umbridge's desk, sending papers, books and quills flying every which way. When the woman turned, yelling for order, Gaara saw Kankurou smirking at him and making the unmistakable motions of a puppeteer with one hand.

Gaara didn't know how to articulate the emotion spreading through him at that moment; he didn't really know what to call it. But it wasn't a bad one.

* * *

They parted ways with Kankurou and Shikamaru outside the classroom, the Ravenclaws had another lesson, Transfiguration, while the Slytherins had a whole hour and a half free until lunch was served. After that they only had something called Care of Magical Creatures that was taught on the Hogwarts grounds.

Ino was determined to put that hour and a half to good use so while the other Slytherins tapered off in different directions, some to the library, others outside and a few even back to bed, she grabbed a hold of Gaara's wrist and pulled him out a door that lead out to a vacant courtyard.

The boy didn't fight her; he didn't even ask her to explain her behaviour, only stared at her with the same monotonous expression as always. He did however pull his wrist free quickly enough, which was kind of rude because it wasn't as if she was some plague diseased rat. Things would've been so much easier if he'd just… be normal!

"_Alright, let's play_." She said and for once got a reaction – a tiny one consisting of a blink of the eyes and a slight arching of the skin where his eyebrow should've been. Sometimes she wondered if he shaved them off but she'd not got around to ask yet. "_Don't worry; I'm going to teach you all there is to know about the social game. Remember, you're dealing with Ino Yamanaka, the most beautiful konuichi in Konoha and a master conversationalist_."

Gaara stared.

Refusing to be discouraged by her student's lack of enthusiasm she cleared her throat: "_Lesson number one: Pleasant conversation and putting people at ease._"

She'd already decided that she'd work her way up with him, leaving the more difficult things such as 'not glaring at people until they wanted to commit suicide' and 'offer the occasional smile' for later.

* * *

It was official: This mission was a drag. So many unknown variables to consider, not to mention so much troublesome work to do in class, and adding to that the fact that shinobi wasn't supposed to be doing magic. Or rather couldn't. Their chakra core and the magic core of these people differed too much to allow it.

To start it off wizards used sticks – wands – fortified with magical elements to use their magic, whereas shinobi did not need tools but used signs. That meant that the magic core flowed to the palm of a wizard's hand, while chakra resided within the entirety of a shinobi's chakra network. At first glance magic was weaker than chakra. But Shikamaru had come to realise that it did offered more variety. Chakra could be used in many different ways, that was true, but it was still tied to the elements and such to determine which shinobi could learn which jutsu. Magic, as far as Shikamaru could tell, pretty much only relied on skill, practice and the will to make that particular magic spell happen. So in essence any wizard could learn and use any type of magic if they only had those three things. That made magic a very dangerous thing, especially if the shinobi were to come across an enemy that could figure out their weaknesses.

Although Dumbledore had given each of them a specialised wand that he said had been made especially for them, one that could 'eat' chakra and renew it in form of magic, neither he nor any of his team-mates had the skills to use them properly yet. Still this was one of the minor concerns, it didn't particularly matter whether the lot of them failed their subjects after all, but the fact was that it would be less troublesome not to fail. The teachers would most likely hound them if they did. Even Snape and McGonagall both of whom Dumbledore had made aware of the situation and who the shinobi really were. It would look suspicious if they garnered special dispensation from two teachers – especially two of the sternest of the lot. Still perhaps they'd give a little leeway under the guise of them being new students and all. At least that was what Shikamaru hoped when he and Kankurou entered the classroom for their first Transfiguration class.

The moment they stepped inside an entire room full of students' eager and curious faces turned their way.

"_What the hell are they staring at?"_ Kankurou muttered beside him.

"How nice of you two to join us, Mr Nara, Mr Sabaku." The old woman at the front of the class said sternly. "Five points from Ravenclaw for being late for class. Now please take a seat and listen up."

"Oi, that's not fair! It took us ages to get across those damn stairs that kept moving around!" Kankurou protested loudly. Earlier he'd complained about not being allowed to solve the problem in a shinobi fashion and just run up the wall.

"Perhaps you should leave earlier for class next time then, Mr Sabaku." McGonagall said waspishly. "And might I also point out that I don't allow such language in my classroom. Ten point from Ravenclaw for swearing."

Before the other shinobi had a chance to open his big fat mouth again Shikamaru walked past him and muttered: _"Let it go."_

Kankurou looked positively mutinous for a moment but one sharp look from his sister sitting to their left shut him up and he followed Shikamaru without further comment. He did however slam his schoolbag down on the desk with more force than strictly necessary before sitting, earning himself another stern glare from the teacher.

"_Troublesome."_ Shikamaru muttered and the teacher's sharp eyes turned his way, moving away after a moment when the woman seemed satisfied that he'd offer no further comment.

"You cannot pass an OWL," She then started of grimly, addressing the class. "Without serious application, practice and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an OWL in…"

Shikamaru zoned out after that. He'd already heard it all before, several times in several different ways in fact, and it all read the same in the end: Work hard. He hated working hard.

Then they were set on a task of vanishing snails, a task he found extremely boring in practice if not in theory. Theoretically this was the type of jutsu that could be very useful, if you only knew how it worked. He spent the rest of the class not even attempting the spell but instead trying to figure out whether the snails really vanished or if they were only made invisible.

When someone finally managed to vanish the damn thing he pushed past Kankurou who was muttering every Japanese swearword in the book and went over to take a closer look.

"Is it gone?" He asked the girl, the same bushy haired girl he'd met during the carriage ride. Hermione. Friend of Harry Potter. She looked surprised when he addressed her but quickly recovered.

"Yes." She answered, the look on her face saying something along the lines of 'obviously' or 'duh'.

"Is it really gone or just invisible?" He asked.

"Oh! Well according to Marygold Hedwickle it's a paradox, see the snail is gone but it's not really gone. It's not invisible because if you attempt to grab it now you can't, but if you do the counter spell the snail still reappears. There's a theory by Bertram Uniwald that says that the snail is actually transported into a different dimension but then again Gerta Felgus claims that it just enters a different wavelength of existence than us and that's why we can't see or touch it." the girl said quickly. "There's no conclusive evidence though."

From the explanation he gathered one thing: it sounded a lot like the barrier that surrounded the hidden continents.

"Mr Nara," McGonagall's voice interrupted. "You should be at your desk practicing, not disturbing the students that are working."

"I'm going." He muttered. "Just needed some information."

"Be kind and counsel myself or your book in the future, Mr Nara, and stop disrupting class." The woman said. He refrained from telling her that he'd already counselled the book and found the information lacking, whereas the girl's answer had given him the possible answer that he needed. Once he reached his desk he picked up his wand, did the required waving and pronounced the spell.

The snail vanished on the spot.

There was a sudden hush in the room when students who had been carefully listening in to the exchange between him and McGonagall all went silent. The teacher herself blinked and looked a bit perplexed by the flow of events before nodding once: "Very good, Mr Nara. Ten points to Ravenclaw."

"How the fucking hell did you do that?" Kankurou exclaimed in frustration, pointing at the spot where the snail had been.

"Mr Sabaku! Ten points from Ravenclaw for swearing."

"_Oh yeah? As if I'd let that lazy-ass get the better of me! Take that!_" Naruto yelled from the other side of the room. A second later there was a deafening boom and smoke everywhere. Coughing Shikamaru squinted his eyes, searching for the source of the disturbance. Moments later, when the smoke cleared, the source was laid bare. Where Naruto had been aiming at his snail there was no snail, nor was there a desk and there was a nicely shaped crater in the floor.

"Mr Uzumaki! Have you lost your mind?" McGonagall barked, rushing over while telling the surrounding students to move out of the way. "In all my years as a teacher I've never witnessed such inept behaviour and now I have not one but two students in as many days attempting to destroy my classroom. Fifteen points from Gryffindor. And you ought to be made aware that the only reason that you won't receive detention as well is because of Miss Yamanaka's quick wits."

"_At least the snail's gone_." Kankurou said with a smirk.

Shikamaru sighed heavily. So troublesome.

Oh well, at least he didn't get any homework. The rest of the class, with the exception of the bushy haired girl, all were told to practice the spell and get ready for a fresh attempt the next day.

"_That dried up old hag,"_ Kankurou muttered when they exited the room. _"I'd like to see her go up against Karasu and Kuroari. 'Ten points from Ravenclaw, Mr Sabaku.'"_

Shikamaru eyed him warily, briefly wondering how far the guy would take the threat. Kankurou did seem a bit hot-headed, speaking his mind without thinking, and it wasn't like Shikamaru knew him well enough to know for certain if the guy wasn't the same when it came to action. He did make a lizard skeleton crash from the ceiling in the Defence Against the Dark Arts class that morning.

"_You guys should stop loosing points for your house anyway."_ Temari said, catching up to them outside of class. Apparently to give them both a lecture. _"The students value that whole point system so it'd be stupid to piss them off. You are supposed to gather information and that'll be easier to do if people would actually talk to you._"

"_Yeah, yeah._" Kankurou muttered. "_It's not my fault that the hag has it in for me._"

Shikamaru eyed him from the corner of his eye, briefly wondering if he should bother to point out that "the hag" had merely asked him not to swear in class. Meh.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Naruto walking with the bushy haired girl, repeating the word "accident" slowly over and over. So she was helping him with his English. Probably a good thing too. If nothing else it gave the shinobi a possible source of information regarding the "Golden Trio's" actions.

They were descending the stairs when Shikamaru saw their two other team-mates at the bottom. Those two were pretty easy to pick out of a crowd, their too bright hair saw to that. Currently Ino was standing in front of Gaara, waving a finger in his face and talking rapidly.

"_Did you know that a lot of animals perceive prolonged eye contact as a sign of hostility? Well people aren't any different._" Ino was saying, while Gaara continued to glare at her.

"_What the hell is she doing?_" Kankurou muttered, sounding both mortified and terrified at once.

Shikamaru shrugged. He'd been on Ino's team long enough to know that the girl wasn't afraid of lecturing her team-mates when she thought it was needed.

"Yo, Gaara!" Temari called while she hurried down the stairs, causing Ino to interrupt her speech. "_Can I talk to you?_" And then, in a more demanding tone, added: " _Kankurou, you too!_"

Just like that the three Suna shinobi were walking in a different direction, Temari in the lead, leaving Ino to look a bit perplexed about the sudden change of events.

"What's that all about?" Ron asked. One glance his way told Shikamaru that the boy was suspicious and he would wager on it having to do with the whole Gryffindor versus Slytherin deal.

"Ron, they're siblings." Hermione said, sounding frustrated. "Obviously Temari wanted to talk to her brothers. That's not a crime, you know."

"But he's a Slytherin." Ron muttered, which only earned him a scathing look from his friend. And a heated tirade, mostly in Japanese, from Naruto. Shikamaru sighed. This was going to get troublesome.

Since Kankurou didn't show up for a long while after running off with his brother and sister, Shikamaru spent his lunch hour in the company of a blond girl who insisted on speaking about the oddest things. He got the impression that there was a lot of eye rolling going on amongst the other Ravenclaws when they heard her tell her stories, but judging from the other strange things he'd seen in this magical world the creatures she spoke about didn't seem all that strange to him. His fellow Ravenclaws didn't agree.

* * *

"Ino! Gaara!"

Ino turned to see Naruto at the top of the hill, waving as he walked toward her and Gaara, the Gryffindor trio in tow. Temari was nowhere in sight.

"So it's just that stupid Gryffindork again." Pansy said with disdain. "Why do you guys even put up with him?"

Judging from the general sneering amongst the rest of the Slytherins Ino figured they were all in agreement with Pansy. To be honest there were times she was too. Sometimes Naruto was just so annoying that she wanted to put her fist through his forehead – which made her feel like she could understand Sakura better. Scary thought.

"He even hangs around Potty, Weasel and that bucktoothed mudblood. Clearly he's got a brainpower and the taste of a houseelf." Draco drawl, gaining a few snickers for his trouble.

"You should know," Blaise chimed in with a smirk. "Since Potty stole yours."

Draco cast his friend a nasty glare, which only made the other boy chuckle. Pansy, ever the doting girlfriend, patted Draco's arm in a manner befitting someone having survived a horrid battle and Ino rolled her eyes at them.

"Naruto…" Gaara replied without looking at any of them. "… is different."

The other Slytherins, argument temporarily forgotten, exchanged glances. Gaara tended to have that effect on people, Ino had noted. He spoke so rarely that when he eventually did people tended to listen – if only for the oddity of the occasion.

"Yeah," Draco agreed after a while. "He might actually be dumber than Weasel."

Again there was a chorus of laughs from the other Slytherins before Pansy grabbed Draco's arm and pulled him away.

"Come on. He's coming this way and he's dragging that mudblood with him."

"Yeah, we've better scram before she infects us with something." Daphne Greengrass agreed. "Who knows where she's been?"

"Weasel's house, no doubt." Blaise said as he followed them down the hill and there was a chorus of 'ewww's and 'that's nasty' from the group.

She tried to give Gaara a look, which she intended to mean something along the lines of 'they're so immature', but of course his attention was firmly on Naruto and the three Gryffindork – er, Gryffindors. They were nearly upon them now and Naruto bounded the few couple of steps ahead of the rest to reach them.

"_Hey, guys have you heard? This class is going to be great!_" Naruto exclaimed and skidded to a halt in front of them, practically vibrating with excitement. "_Hermione said there're lots of different magical creatures. Even dragons. And Harry had to fight one last year. Hey, hey, do you think we'll get to fight dragons too? That'd be awesome…_"

There was a moment there that Ino could feel her stomach try to creep up towards her throat. Dragons… did not sound like fun. In any way shape or form. So when the three remaining Gryffindors also caught up she turned to them quickly. Her immediate focus landed on the tall redheaded guy, the one the other Slytherins called Weasel.

"Naruto is saying we'll be fighting dragons." She said to him, hoping to all things holy that it wasn't so.

The redhead looked taken aback under her sudden scrutiny and blushed fiercely. The performance made her smile, perhaps somewhat smugly, because it was nice to know that she still had her charms intact. A few days with Gaara's impassive stare and she had begun to wonder.

"Dragons? No that was last year at the Triwizard tournament." Potter replied in his friend's stead. "I… er told Naruto about it. Guess the details got lost in translation."

"Don't worry." The girl with the horribly bushy hair said. "There's no way Professor Grubby-Plank would allow any dragons here."

"Yeah. Unlike Hagrid." Ron said, earning him dirty glances from both the girl and Potter. "What? Wouldn't be the first time he'd have us pet some kind of huge man-eating monster, would it?"

"_I've got loads of new moves I want to try. If they work on a dragon they're bound to work on that snake-bastard Orochimaru._" Naruto chatted excitedly, swinging his limbs as if getting ready for a fight.

Sighing loudly she swung his way. "_There won't be any dragons, Naruto. He was only telling you a story about something that happened last year. Honestly, you need to learn their language. Wasn't someone supposed to teach you? Temari said…_"

Naruto interrupted her by pointing at the bushy haired girl. "_Hermione is teaching me. She's really great and she helps me out in class too!_"

The girl in question, Hermione, looked a little confused when she was suddenly thrust into the spotlight of a conversation she didn't understand.

"_Don't point at people, Naruto._" Ino said with frustration and wondered why all the guys she ever worked with always lacked manners. "_It's rude._"

"_Yeah, well I bet you wouldn't know her name if I didn't._" Naruto challenged.

"_Of course I would._" Ino lied primly. "_Dumbledore told us when we came here._"

"_Yeah, but you never listen._" Naruto replied slyly and laughed loudly when she glared at him. She was about to retort when the tall redhead interrupted them: "Uh, what're they fighting about?"

Gaara, who'd been watching them in silence, replied: "English."

Then he turned and continued the walk down where their next class was going to be held. Feeling a bit silly about getting into another fight with Naruto, the second in as many days at Hogwarts, Ino hastily summoned every set of dignified female manners she had and ignored him.

"I'm sorry." She said to the trio. "Naruto is just – well he can be really annoying sometimes! I don't know if you even want to be able to understand him." She couldn't help but sticking her tongue out at the other blond at that. Only a little, and with a lot of dignity involved in the action. Then she quickly followed Gaara but at least _she_ had the manners to turn and offer a good bye before rushing off.

She caught up with him and the rest of the Slytherins on the grounds where for some reason a large table had been placed. On top of the table there was a large pile of twigs and behind it there was an elderly witch. Probably the professor, Ino thought and tried to recall the name of the professor. It had been a really weird one too so it wasn't as if Naruto was right and she was a bad listener. These people just had weird names.

Finally she just gave up and asked Daphne for the name, softly not to let Naruto hear when he and the Gryffindors arrived.

"Everyone here?" barked the old witch (that went by the title Professor Grubby-Plank). Without pausing to wait for an answer she continued: "Let's crack on then. Who can tell me what these things are called?"

She pointed at a heap of twigs that was laid out on a table. Only one student seemed to know what the teacher was talking about; Hermione. That girl's hand shot up like an arrow, causing Ino to giggle. The sheer ferocity with which the girl wanted to show off reminded her of Sakura and she wondered if this girl had an equally wide forehead.

Apparently Draco must've been thinking something similar because he made a buck-toothed imitation of her jumping up and down to get the teacher's attention. Pansy shrieked with laugher and Ino smirked, until Pansy laugh turned into an actual shriek when the twigs on the table suddenly leaped into the air.

Of course it couldn't have been actual twigs – these magic folk had to have live twigs, didn't they? Glancing nervously at the other shinobi she saw that she was not the only one that had been startled into battle-mode; Naruto looked ready to punch any twig-man brave enough to come close.

When some of the students 'oh'd and 'ah'd, and the teacher herself didn't appear the least bit worried about the change of events Ino relaxed.

"Kindly keep your voices down, girls," the Professor barked and flung some rice on the table. A moment later the twig-men had descended upon it like a flock of wolves. "So – anyone know the name of these creatures? Miss Granger?"

So Hermione Granger then, Ino added the name to her memory carefully and only half listened to the girl's rapid reply – apparently they were dealing with some sort of tree guardian that the magic folk called Bowtruckles.

Ino, not very interested in these magical animals they had to learn about already felt her focus shifting away and she didn't care to fight the urge to think about anything but the lesson. She did have better things to do after all; such as keeping an eye on the Slytherins. Especially whenever Harry Potter happened to be in the area.

That was why she and Gaara had taken vigilant posts near Draco Malfoy and his hulking cronies, while Naruto was keeping close to their charge. Briefly she wondered where the hell Temari had gone to but quickly dismissed the thought in lieu of taking a closer look at Potter. Tsk, who'd have thought a guy like that could manage to make so many enemies? Short, skinny and with a pair of glasses he didn't exactly look like the type of guy who'd make enemies left and right. Still he'd somehow managed to accumulate one powerful evil wizard (with friends), a whole government and the entire Slytherin house as just that. She hated to quote Shikamaru but this guy really was troublesome.

She was a little startled when the rest of the class surged forward, crowding around the table to receive one of the ugly little Bowtruckles but quickly caught up and looked at the creatures with derision. She didn't want that thing anywhere near her – those horrible fingers alone could cause havoc on a girl's hair.

"Gaara," She said, smiling her most winning smile at him when he turned his head – there was no man in existence that could say no when confronted with the most beautiful girl in Konoha. Neji did not enter that equation – she'd decided that nearly a year ago. "_Could you grab that Bowtruckle for me?_"

Without comment he turned away and snatched up the closest stick-man.

"_Grab the food._" Gaara said as he turned and walked away, leaving her to stare at his back. Tsk, that guy was such a… berk, Ino thought. Oh well, she'd whip him into social-shape in no time. A few more social-lessons and she'd have him a proper gentleman. Grabbing a handful of the rice she went after him.

As usual whenever Gryffindor and Slytherin had lessons together the class ended up dividing itself in two; Gryffindors to the right and Slytherin to the left. This was probably for the best considering the animosity between them.

She and Gaara found themselves seated in a cluster of other Slytherins soon enough.

"What is this anyway?" She asked perplexed and leaned down to look at the white seeds she'd assumed to be rice. Now that she got a closer look she was certain that it wasn't however.

"Didn't you listen at all?" Daphne Greengrass said with a sneer.

"Can you blame her?" Pansy said slyly. "Who wants to listen when that mudblood Granger starts flapping her gums?"

"And her teeth." Blaise chimed in, causing a fair number of laughs. Blaise smiled at the chorus of laughs, feigning the look of a benevolent father with his mischievous children, and turned to Ino. "That, which you're holding, is nothing less than woodlice."

Ino tensed up instantly and pulled a face. "Lice." She repeated and cringed on the inside.

"Better watch it so you don't get any in your hair." Pansy warned and smirked at her. For a moment Ino was tempted to throw the lice on the other girl, but Gaara's steady voice stopped her.

"They're dead." He said and she glanced at him, then down at the tiny struggling twig-man in his grasp. Fine, that little devil might tear her hair but the thought of lice – regardless if they were dead – anywhere near it was ten times worse.

"Trade me." She said. She could've sworn that for a second she saw something very cold and dark swimming in his eyes, something that made a chill run up her spine, but at last he held up the Bowtruckle for her to take. Unfortunately she was a little too eager to get the lice out of her hand because when she handed them over to Gaara and grabbed the Bowtruckle, all the while attempting to wipe her other hand off, the little creature got loose. As soon as it did it flew off towards the forest and Ino cussed.

Noting that Gaara certainly made no sign of getting off the ground and chase after it she huffed, pointedly, at him.

"_Fine. I'll catch it._" She said, running after it. Tsk, wasn't it supposed to be the guy's duties to do this type of thing anyway? Honestly, why did she always end up on teams with guys that just did not know the rules of social conduct? She'd bet Sasuke would've chased it for her in a heartbeat.

Sasuke…

Shaking her head determinedly she pushed any thought of Sasuke clear out of her mind, instead focusing on the chase. Shooting a look back towards the other students she was glad to see that she was too far away from them now for them to see her clearly, so gathering chakra in her legs she quickened her pace. Soon enough she was catching up to the reluctant lesson specimen. A few more steps, she thought with a smirk when the creature flew into the forest. Deciding to not give it time to camouflage itself with the trees she leaped, jumped off one tree trunk, then another tree trunk and – HA!

Ino smirked in triumph when she landed on the soft forest floor, Bowtruckle firmly in hand.

"_Thought you could outrun me, didn't you? No one gets away from Ino Yamanaka._" She told the little stick-man, whom didn't seem to understand her at all. Perhaps it didn't have ears anyhow; she thought and peered down at it.

Oh well, she'd better get back to –

Ino gasped when she felt a familiar sensation creeping along her spine. Chakra. Someone was using chakra, and they were close. Looking around quickly she scanned the forest for the source of the chakra, half convinced she'd see one of her team-mates walk up, but she could find no one.

"Gaara?" She tried in a soft voice, figuring that if it had been any of the others they'd made themselves known by now. Pricking her ears she listened intently but heard only the sounds of the forest. Wind in the leaves, the buzzing of insects and the flapping of birds' wings. None of which was an indication of a shinobi presence. On the other hand it wasn't an indication of the opposite either.

Suddenly the chakra was gone, and she blinked with surprise. Warily she remained where she was for another few moments, trying to find the chakra again, but when the chakra remained missing she finally decided to walk back. Still tense and ready for anything, running, dodging, attacking, she hurried out of the forest and back onto Hogwarts grounds.

The entire trek back to the group she kept one eye on the forest.

"Miss Yamanaka, what in the world happened?" Professor Grubby-Plank's voice interrupted her vigil and she looked up when the old witch came hurrying towards her. Confused she protested when the old woman grabbed her hand. "There now, let the poor creature go. There's certainly no need to grip them quiet that tightly, I assure you. "

Startled she realised that her hand was bloody. Many long but razor thin wounds littered her fist from where the Bowtruckle had dug its nails in.

"Oh. Sorry." She said, letting the teacher take the twig-man from her. "I suppose I didn't realise how hard I was holding it."

The Professor shot her a stern glare. "I should certainly hope so, Miss Yamanaka. Nevertheless I believe you should remove yourself to the infirmary and allow Madam Pomfrey to heal these. While a Bowtruckle's nails are in no way poisonous I am afraid they could leave some scaring. Mr Sabaku, escort Miss Yamanaka to the Hospital Wing, will you?"

Gaara got up from the ground and together they walked back to Hogwarts. Once out of sight of the professor Ino stopped and grabbed his arm.

"_Can you feel anything?_" She asked. "_Any chakra at all?_"

Gaara frowned and pulled his arm away. "_Chakra?_"

Ino nodded seriously. "_When I went into the forest after that Bowtruckle I felt a chakra signature from inside the forest, but then it disappeared._"

Gaara stared at her for a moment before closing his eyes. A few seconds later he opened his eyes again. "_No._"

Frowning she looked back down at the forest. It looked as quiet and peaceful as usual, but she was sure that it hadn't been her imagination playing tricks on her. She'd felt something in there.

* * *

"I don't understand how you can be so blasé about it." complained Terry Boot, a brown haired Ravenclaw boy that seemed fed up with his Transfiguration homework. "I mean it's only the first week and we're already buried in homework. I've always heard that O.W.L year is a bloody menace but I never reckoned it'd be this bad. "

Shikamaru, sprawled out on the sofa in the common room, yawned. He'd found himself a nice, cosy spot in front of the fireplace. Not that he got much time for the relaxation and reflection he'd wanted since his housemates seemed intent on dragging him into conversation every chance they got.

"Why bother." He replied lazily. "School's a drag."

Terry looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Not studying, you mean?"

Shikamaru shrugged. Or rather performed whatever motion one could pass off as a shrug while lying down.

"You're having a laugh." Terry said, sounding accusing. Shikamaru looked at him, noting that the words didn't match the tone. Most likely it must mean something other than literal since he was not laughing.

Meh, whatever, he thought. Terry, however, didn't want to let the matter drop.

"You're not planning on not studying are you? On O.W.L year?" He sounded positively scandalized and Shikamaru sighed heavily, cursing the blasted hat for placing him with an entire house full of eggheads. It was far worse than going to the academy where when all was said and done Iruka was more concerned about them actually knowing what they needed to than whether they did their homework every time.

"I'll make it up on my O.W.L:s." Shikamaru replied simply. He did have better things to do than study like a maniac after all. Besides, magic wasn't that difficult once you figured out the trick. Flick, flick, incantation – result.

"You can't do that." Terry protested. At the same time the door to the common room opened with a bang and a fuming Kankurou stomped inside. He was followed by a throng of other students, all of whom were watching him warily.

"Someone should tear down that stupid knocker and throw it in that damn lake!" He barked to no one in particular, making it obvious for everyone why he was in such a foul mood. Shikamaru closed his eyes while all around the common room laughs erupted. Kankurou was rapidly gaining a reputation of being utterly incapable of solving riddles, which was something the other Ravenclaws found very entertaining. "Shut it." Kankurou barked, again to no one and everyone at once, and slumped down next to Terry on the sofa opposite of the one Shikamaru had commandeered.

"So foiled by the brass bird again." Terry said with a grin.

"I told you to shut it." Kankurou groused. "I stood out there for half an hour before someone showed up that could get that stupid thing to open the door."

"What was the riddle this time?" Asked Michael Corner and set down his Charms homework. It had become a new hobby for the boys in their year to get Kankurou to repeat the riddle so that they could try their hands on it. Or minds were perhaps a more accurate description. The Suna shinobi did not find this the least bit amusing.

"None of your damn business." He replied curtly, wounded pride making his posture stiff and angry.

"Hey, Mandy!" Michael called, waving his arm to catch the girl's attention. "What was the riddle?"

The brown haired girl giggled and threw Kankurou a mischievous little smile. "It walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening."

"You're bloody joking." Terry gaped at her, then at Kankurou.

"What?" He snapped back defensively.

"That's one of the most common riddles in history. Everyone knows it! Even muggles!" Michael laughed.

Kankurou looked murderous. "Well I've sure as hell never heard it before! Besides it doesn't make any sense! What kind of man has four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening?"

"Terry, I think our new friend was born under a rock." Michael said and grinned.

"Yeah, mate, how have you not heard that riddle? It's the bloody riddle of the Sphinx!" Terry agreed. "Besides it's a metaphor. Morning means infancy, noon means mid-life and evening is when you're old – walk with a cane, you know."

"Well if that damn knocker had said that I'd have got it too!" Kankurou said, pointing accusingly at the door and its offending piece of ornamentation.

"Yeah, but then it wouldn't have been a riddle, mate." Michael smirked and Kankurou snorted.

"Who the hell cares about riddles?" He grumbled.

"How did you end up in Ravenclaw?" Terry asked in exasperation.

"Ask the hat." Kankurou muttered.

"It's funny." Michael mused aloud. "I've never known the knocker to give such easy riddles before. Even to the first years. Do you think it's trying to humour him?"

That was when Shikamaru decided that it was time to go. If he didn't watch it they'd soon ask him to weight in and give them his honest opinion regarding Kankurou's riddle solving skills. Or lack thereof.

Kankurou and the others didn't seem to notice him sneaking off, which he was grateful for.

At least the halls were starting to quite down around this time. Most of the students were starting to return to their dorms and the few that hadn't didn't make much of a fuss. Leisurely he walked the halls, making it very apparent for anyone that might see him that he was in no sort of hurry. He did have a destination in mind though but he thought it best that he wouldn't look that way in case someone saw him.

When he was drawing close to Umbridge's office he stopped and leaned against a shadowed wall. The chances of anyone seeing him there were small but in case anyone did he'd at least not look as if he was attempting to hide. There was no one in the corridor though and it was nearly eight o'clock which meant that Potter should be arriving soon, unless he already had. This also meant that Gaara should be here somewhere. He didn't know what the Suna shinobi was planning on doing in order to keep watch over Potter during his detention; however Kankurou had assured him that his little brother could do it without being detected.

So the question was where he might be hiding out while awaiting Potter's arrival. It all depended on the type of surveillance he was planning to use, of course, and to be certain where shinobi were concerned there were as many different ways of spying as there were shinobi.

However Gaara's hands were tied, if only slightly, by the fact that they'd agreed to be as inconspicuous as possible, which meant that chances were that he wouldn't risk being seen. So not somewhere on the outside where, if caught, he'd be assaulted with a lot of uncomfortable questions. Inside? Perhaps in one of the vacant classrooms.

Pushing away from the wall Shikamaru quietly walked the corridor, testing the doors as he went. The first three classrooms were empty and dark but when he opened the fourth door he found Gaara sitting in the furthest and darkest corner.

The redhead didn't look up when Shikamaru entered but he had the impression that Gaara wasn't exactly surprised that he'd come. When Shikamaru sat down next to him the other shinobi finally looked at him.

"_Oh man, this mission's such a drag._" Shikamaru said, leaning back on his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "_One thing after the other. And school too. Thought I'd escaped that when I graduated._"

"_Ino sensed chakra from the forest._" Gaara replied curtly.

Huh, that was interesting; Shikamaru thought and leaned his elbows against the desk. "_When?_"

"_During the Care of Magical Creatures lesson._"

"_Did you or Temari or Naruto sense anything?_" He asked, frowning. He didn't doubt that Ino had sensed the chakra but he couldn't imagine why it'd be there. There was the possibility that it had to do with Hogwarts somehow. They'd noticed before that places that were particularly imbued with magic could cause odd things to happen to shinobi senses – the trip to Diagon Alley came to mind - and Hogwarts was indeed particularly imbued with magic. On the other hand none of them had ever sensed chakra because of it before.

"_No_." Gaara replied curtly. Then after a pause added: "_She said it disappeared suddenly._"

As if someone masked it, Shikamaru finished in his mind.

"_We'll have to be careful._" He decided. "_It's a possibility that it's only Hogwarts playing tricks on her. With all this magic around there's no telling what it might do to our senses. However if there are other shinobi here and they've not approached us they're probably here on another mission. Possibly one that would hinder ours._"

Gaara nodded, eyeing him from the corner of his eye as if waiting for something else. Sighing Shikamaru leaned back again, staring up at the ceiling. "_We should check it out. Two man teams that'll go into the forest and search. Kankurou and I only have two subjects tomorrow; we can sneak off after that._"

Gaara's gaze moved away from him then. "_It's eight o'clock._" He said and held out his hand, palm facing down. The shadow user watched, curious, when sand streamed out of the bottomless bag Gaara carried for his sand. It hovered over his palm, quickly forming into a small sphere. When the sphere itself grew an eye he slowly lowered the chair and leaned forward, in the same instance Gaara closed his hand, scattering the sand once more.

Gaara cast him a glance and said: "It travels into the room."

The shadow user nodded and idly wondered if this was the technique the redhead had used to cheat during the first part of the chuunin exams.

After another moment the redhead closed one eye, and raised a hand to make a sign. "_Third Eye, opened._"

A third eye… Huh, that was a very useful jutsu.

"_Potter has arrived._" Gaara reported.

Shikamaru waited, trusting Gaara to tell him what was going on.

"_Umbridge made him sit while she works._"

"_What's she working on?_" Shikamaru asked.

"_Files on the students. There's a letter addressed to her from a Cornelius Fudge. Hmph, the Minister of magic. She hasn't opened it._"

"_Alright._" Shikamaru muttered, leaning back again. Maybe they should take a look through the woman's office, check those files and whatnot. That letter could prove to contain valuable information. It was no secret that the woman came from Ministry and he had inkling that they might've been responsible for one attempt on Potter's life already. On the other hand they had been asked to keep an eye on Potter, not to break into the teachers' offices.

"_Potter is writing._"

He looked up at that, mostly because he was surprised that Gaara had volunteered information. Especially since it seemed rather trivial.

"_Using his own blood._" Gaara finished.

* * *

**Author's notes: **

Huh, I keep adding things and making these chapters ridiculously long. Although I must admit that I enjoy writing about Ino's and Gaara's "bonding" experience. Also I still kind of feel like I should let the Naruto characters get settled in a bit to the Hogwarts rhythm.

I did some changes to the previous chapter – I was annoyed at it – mainly it's the last part I changed. Read it if you wish or don't if you… well don't, it's not a very substantial change. That chapter is mostly just to get a hang of when and where the Naruto characters are and how their very first impressions of Hogwarts are anyway.

Hope you liked the chapter – please review.


	4. Chapter 4

Going Magic

Chapter 4: Investigating Hogwarts

Characters: Gaara, Temari, Kankurou – gotta love the sandsibs – Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru and well, all the magic folk they run into over time

Pairings: Hmm, well they're kids so not so much. Possibly slight Temari/Shikamaru, and by the same definition you could consider there to be equally slight Hermione/Ron… I guess?

Set: Before Shippuden. During Book 5, Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter

Note: It's been a good long while since I read HP so I'll probably be fuzzy on several details – however since I'll be writing primarily from the Naruto characters' POV I hope this won't be too annoying. The plotline would be altered if a gang of shinobi would enter the scene, right?

Warning: Crossover? Is that qualified to be a warning?

_Italics_ – Japanese

* * *

Naruto trudged through the corridors of Hogwarts, hands in his pockets while taking a proper look around the place. The old castle was huge and had many hidden nooks and crannies. No way was he going to up to the common room tonight, not when Temari and Hermione were staking out the place, armed with English books. He didn't even need to study anymore, not since the other day when Temari had borrowed the necklace he'd gotten from Tsunade and asked Dumbledore to place a translation spell on it. Sure he still couldn't speak the language all that great but he did understand it flawlessly as long as the necklace was in place. That meant that he could allow himself a night off from studying. Besides there were so many other things to do at Hogwarts – there were loads of things to see and enjoy.

He'd wanted to track down Gaara and drag him along for this excursion but he'd been in the Slytherin common room and the Slytherin student he'd tried to get to tell Gaara to meet him outside had only sneered at him unpleasantly and told him to "Bugger off" and shut the door. He supposed that meant something along the lines of "No." After he'd yelled at the closed door for a while he'd finally given up and decided that he'd just have to amuse himself.

Besides, Gaara had Harry-duty tonight so perhaps he could track him down later. Since his friend didn't sleep he probably wouldn't mind some late night exploring anyway.

First Naruto had tried tracking down the little soldier man from the painting, the one he'd seen on his first night in the castle, but hadn't been able to find him. He did have a few conversations with some other paintings though – a flirtatious woman with a fish-butt had made him blush but then she'd gotten angry when he asked about her fish-butt and indignantly told him that she was a mermaid before swimming out of the frame.

Currently he was busy peeking into a suit of armour. A few minutes earlier when he'd walked down this corridor the suits of armour had saluted him. Once he'd realised that they wouldn't attack he'd tried to talk to them but hadn't got a response – which was the reason why he was currently sitting on top of one of the suits of armours' shoulders, holding its helmet in his hands and peering into its hollow innards.

Weird, Naruto though and leaned closer to the hole, hoping to catch a glimpse of _something_ inside, but there was noth-

Splash!

Spluttering Naruto lost his balance when something wet and runny hit him on the back of his head and both he and the suit of armour crashed to the floor accompanied by a cacophony of banging and clanging.

"Ouch…" He groaned, sprawled out on the floor, and touched the back of his head. His fingers came back covered in something sticky and red and for a moment he thought it was blood but then he quickly realised that it was much too gooey and… it smelled like raspberries. Mad cackling filled the corridor and Naruto whipped around towards the sound. There was a small, ugly man floating above him, pointing and cackling at him.

"_Gah! You bastard!_" Naruto barked, jumping to his feet and causing the floating man to stop cackling.

"Nuh-nuh, ickle bratty blondie. Can't speak the language, can't say a word right!" The man jeered at him. "Ickle stupid blondie, with pie on his face and custard in his head!"

When the ugly little man readied another volley of raspberry pies Naruto narrowly dodged the sweet smelling missiles and ran towards his attacker. The creature stuck its tongue out at him before speeding off down the corridor, still cackling and jeering.

"_Come back here, bastard!_" Naruto yelled, rushing after the little man. The man answered with throwing another pie at him, finishing off with blowing him a raspberry.

Angrily he reached for his kunai only to realise that he didn't have them on him – a condition Dumbledore had set for them staying at Hogwarts. No pointy weapons on school grounds.

Damn.

He chased the horrible little man for a good long while after that, eventually loosing him somewhere in the dungeons where it was too dark to see and the only thing Naruto could hear was the jeering calls off the creature. The calls echoed, seemingly coming from behind, then in front and then left and right.

"_You bastard!_" Naruto yelled into the bowels of the castle, knowing that the creature would be able to hear him. "_I'll get you! Just you watch! I, Uzumaki Naruto, the future Hokage of Konoha, will get you! Believe it!_"

His only answer was a distant, echoing cackle.

Grumbling to himself Naruto glared into the darkness, scratching his head when he belatedly realised that he was utterly and completely lost somewhere under Hogwarts. In the dark. Where there be g-ghosts… scrunching up his face he shook his head forcefully. No, he was not going to think about g- ghosts.

Gulping the blond quietly snuck down the corridor, one hand trailing the wall so that he wouldn't get more lost than he already was. Or walk into something. Something see-through and cold and… no.

He had no idea of how long he walked around in the dungeons, the complete darkness made it difficult to properly tell the time and he only hoped that he'd get out before morning. Or before he accidentally snuck into Snape's bedroom- he'd heard rumours that Snape slept somewhere down here. Ron had claimed that the man slept hanging up-side-down from the ceiling but Hermione had told him not to listen to him.

What if he starved to death and died? Would he turn into a ghost?

"_Gah! Stop it, stop it, stop it!_" He berated himself loudly, jumping from one foot to the other. He couldn't stand it anymore – no way was he going to let himself become some stupid translucent dead guy that haunted this dumb castle for all eternity! Without ever eating ramen again! "_That's it!_" He called defiantly into the dark. "_I'm getting out. Now! Rasengan!_"

Blue light suddenly filled the corridor when a hastily summoned clone began manipulating the chakra in Naruto's hand, quickly and efficiently forming it into a roaring ball of chakra. Naruto grinned, feeling elevated now that he knew for a fact that he'd be out of this miserable dungeon soon and -

"_Wait, stupid!" _

"_Huh?"_ He pulled a face and glared at the clone that had stopped him from ramming the rasengan into the nearest wall. "_What the heck do you want?_"

The identical clone glared back and pointed. "_Bah, take a look._"

Naruto, somewhat begrudgingly, looked past the fiercely blinding light from the rasengan and towards where his clone pointed. He blinked with surprise when he saw the door, old and rusty perhaps but judging from the grimy window next to it…

"_Yeah!_" He exclaimed, gesturing at the door with enthusiasm. "_Look, it's the way out! Look! Oh yeah! Uzumaki Naruto to the rescue!_"

"_Guh, you're such an idiot._" The clone muttered testily. "_I can't believe I'm your clone. Why couldn't I have been the clone of some cool guy instead?_"

Naruto halted, baffled by the clone's running commentary. Since when did a clone start talking back? No scratch that – his clones had a tendency to talk back, but they never acted like… well the stupid clone acted kind of like Sasuke actually.

"_Hey, bastard._" Naruto barked at the identical blond whom was eyeing him with a sour expression. Very Sasuke-esque. _"I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'm the coolest shinobi ever." _

The other blond snorted and looked at him with disdain. "_You're the stupid blond guy that no one wants on their team because he always makes a mess of things. I bet you'll make a mess of this mission too, like you always do._"

"_What the hell is your problem, bastard?_" Naruto yelled, shaking his fist at the other… him.

"_My problem is you, idiot!_" The clone yelled back. "_You're giving me a bad name! It's no wonder Sasuke left Konoha! He wanted to get the hell away from you! Just like everyone else wi- GAH!_"

The clone smacked against the stone wall when Naruto punched it, upon impact it 'puffed' out of existence and left Naruto the only blond menace in this dungeon. Breathing heavily with anger Naruto clenched his fist, pushing down the urge to punch something else. The only available target was walls made of age old stone anyway and he knew from experience that it hurt to punch one of those.

"_Yeah, take that bastard._" He muttered into the dark, still reeling from the experience of his clone growing… well evil, or something. That was weird. None of his clones had ever done that befo-

Naruto's head snapped up when a creaking noise cut through the silence and he crouched down, ready to fight. Ahead someone opened the door, letting the pale light of the moon in and making the silhouette of someone tall and gangly apparent.

"Hello?" an uncertain and hesitant voice called and Naruto recognised the voice.

"Ron?" He called back, quickly making his way out of the darkness and grinning when Ron jumped a little at his sudden appearance.

"Naruto? What the bloody hell are you doing down here?" The tall redhead blurted out and Naruto sheepishly scratched his neck.

"I.. er..lost."

"Down here? What the bloody hell were you doing? Trying to find the way into Snape's personal stash?"

"No, no," Naruto replied quickly, waving his hands about while trying to formulate a response. Gah, stupid English language! "I… ran… er… chase… ugly mean man."

"Snape? You were chasing Snape?" Ron asked, eyes widening while he seemed to be attempting to picture that event. Frustrated Naruto shook his head.

"Ugly… little man. He…er…" Naruto stammered, trying to think of the correct word for flying but eventually settling for mimicking the word with his arms. Ron looked at him as if he'd gone mad but then his expression cleared into realisation.

"Peeves!" He yelled suddenly and Naruto narrowed his eyes, trying to comprehend this new word that the translation spell didn't translate. He glanced down at his necklace and wondered whether it was broken somehow. Or maybe old man Dumbledore had messed the spell up. "Alright, mate, you were chasing Peeves, I got it. Don't worry about it; he's a bloody menace for everyone. Stupid poltergeist."

Ha! Naruto nodded along with a grin once he'd realised that Peeves wasn't a word but the name of the little, flying mean man. Once the circumstances of how he came to be there had been made clear a somewhat uneasy silence fell between the two Gryffindors. For some reason Ron suddenly appeared to be ill at ease about something and was trying to hide a big stick behind his back, as if just realising that he was holding it. Curious Naruto craned his neck and leaned to the side to see what he was hiding.

"You clean?" He asked, pointing at the broom, because he now realised what it was Ron was hiding if not why he was hiding it.

"What?" Ron asked quickly and hid the broom more securely behind his back. "Er… no, mate. " Then he sighed heavily and brought the broom out again. "I was… er… sort of training."

Naruto grinned; he understood training. Obviously this must be some sort of wizard battle type of weapon – even if it looked like a broom. Perhaps it was like a hidden weapon, meant to look innocent until – BAM! He never would've suspected that Ron of all people would be in training though, he didn't look the part. But then again, he figured, none of these magical people did.

Excited the blond snatched the weapon out of the wizard's hands, jumping back when the tall redhead protested and reached for it. Snickering Naruto easily avoided the clumsily flailing arms until he managed to get a safe distance from the wizard.

"_Funny kind of weapon._" He muttered, taking a closer look at the broom. "_Wonder how it works. Gah!_"

He hit the ground with a grunt and lost his grip on the broom. Ron snatched it up and stood over him, looking somewhat menacing with his wand pointed at Naruto's face. A bit grumpily the blond sat up – or tried to because his legs wouldn't cooperate and felt heavy as lead. Struggling he managed to drag himself up enough to glare at Ron.

"What you do?" he asked, waving at his unresponsive legs.

"What? You're the one that stole my broom, mate. I just hit you with a jelly-legs jinx, that's all." The redhead said, looking quite pleased with himself.

"Huh…" Naruto muttered, pulling one heavy leg up with his hands and letting go, it flopped down like a wet noodle. "Jelly… leg."

"Er… it'll wear off." Ron offered. "Not that you didn't deserve it. Bloody hell, you can't just grab people's stuff and run about with it. My mum would have your head for less."

Naruto nodded along, thinking that perhaps these magical people wouldn't be such terrible fighters if only more of them would follow Ron's initiative and train. Grinning he made a thumbs up at Ron's startled face. "Good weapon. No move."

"Er… right." The redhead agreed, sounding doubtful.

"What that do?" Naruto asked, pointing at the broom.

"What? You've never seen a broom before?"

"Only cleaning… broom," The blond pronounced the new word carefully. "No weapon broom."

Ron looked at him blankly for a moment. "You think this is a weapon? Are you completely barmy? It's a bloody flying broom not a weapon! I don't know how it was at your old school but Dumbledore would never let us have weapons at Hogwarts."

Naruto blinked. "Flying?"

Ron's mouth closed so quickly that Naruto thought he might've bit his tongue.

"Er… yeah. " Ron muttered, looking embarrassed for some reason. "What? Don't you know how to fly?"

Naruto shook his head. "No… er… no use broom… to fly."

"Huh, I reckoned all wizards your age knew how to fly. Maybe you can ask Madam Hotch to let you into her class, it's pretty easy."

Naruto nodded quickly, excited at the thought of flying his own broom. Pointing at the broom he grinned at the other boy. "You teach?"

"You?" Ron blurted. "No way, mate. If you break this I'll not have a chance of getting on the team."

A little crestfallen by the abrupt rejection Naruto grumbled for a moment before really hearing what Ron had said. Curious he peered up at the tall boy. "Team?"

"Yeah." Ron mumbled, looking away and once again looking uncomfortable. "The – er- Gryffindor Quidditch team. I got this new broom so I figured I'd try out this year. I just wanted to get a bit of practice first is all, 'cause the try outs are on Friday."

Naruto thought about this for a moment, he didn't like Ron all that much after his blatant prejudice towards Gaara, but Naruto didn't believe he was really a bad person. Just stupid. Stupid could be cured… well, treated at least. And he was curious to see the guy fly. That was why he grinned brightly and declared: "I help!"

* * *

The next night Naruto was once again investigating Hogwarts. He had every intention of going back to the Gryffindor tower as late as possible because Temari had promised bloody murder if he didn't show up tonight. If he came in really late he figured that the konuichi might be asleep by the time he made it back.

He'd promised Ron to help him practice tonight as well, a little later when the redhead was done with his homework. Meanwhile Naruto had decided to take another tour of Hogwarts.

Currently he was prowling the corridors on the fourth… no, the fifth… er, he'd forgotten which floor he was on by now. He'd been too busy investigating to really notice, and now he was getting hungry. Stopping he wondered where the kitchen might be, there had to be a kitchen somewhere after all. Sure the food popped up magically on the table but someone had to be making it, right?

His stomach agreed with that assessment. Loudly.

Looking around the blond shinobi tried to figure out where he might be, and more importantly, where the food might be located from his position.

"_The Great Hall!_" He decided aloud. That had to be it. The kitchen must be somewhere near the hall, why else would everyone always eat there? That meant that he had to go down, he decided and turned on his heel to trudge back to the stair he'd walked up not long ago.

While he walked he imagined all the food a place like this must be storing. There had to be a lot of cooks to prepare all that food for all of those students too.

Perhaps he could teach them to make ramen – that way he could have ramen every day!

Ah, ramen… wonderful ramen. He hadn't had a bite of ramen in weeks and Naruto missed his favourite dish with fervour. It hadn't even crossed his mind when they left Konoha that Hogwarts might not serve ramen – had he known he'd have filled himself to the brim before departure.

Gah, he missed ramen!

He missed Ichiraku's ramen!  
A movement at the corner of his eye caused him to stop in his tracks and whirl around, ready to fight. There was no one there, only a deserted corridor and… something on the wall. No, the wall was changing! Slowly a door appeared in the wall and Naruto stared at it with both surprise and confusion.

Huh? That's weird…

Cautiously the blond closed the gap and eased the door open. Immediately he was hit with a scent that made him halt every tiny movement, then he abruptly threw the door open and stared at the… wonderful, beautiful…

"_Ramen!_" He exclaimed, rushing into the room he stopped. Slowly he turned and turned, looking at it all. There was bowls of ramen in every nook and cranny. Different kinds, with miso, with soy, with eggs and pork and… and… extra everything! Naruto didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Grinning so wide that he probably looked like a loon Naruto took one loving look around before exclaiming: "_Let's eat!_"

* * *

Ron had made the team and there was a party in the common room. As gryffindors tended to be both loud and rowdy Naruto wasn't surprised to find that their parties would be the same way. He felt like a fish in the sea. Everyone was congratulating Ron, Naruto was cheering the loudest of all and even Hermione and Temari seemed to have taken a break from hassling him about English for the night. It was great, he decided and laughed along with everyone else when Fred (or George- he never could tell the difference) made his wand spit out miniature fireworks that looked like miniature Quidditch players chasing the…er… ball.

When Naruto spotted Harry slinking into the common room, looking pale and tired, he decided that it was his shot at getting a hold of Gaara. This time there was no chance he'd miss him and he had a really cool secret to share.

Rushing out and down the stairs that didn't want to stay in place Naruto quickly made his way down to Umbridge's office, only to leap aside and hide behind a wall when he saw the woman coming out of her office.

Pressing himself tightly against the wall he peeked around it and watched her walk the other direction and once she was out of sight he relaxed. Damn, the toad lady had stalled him. Now Gaara had probably…

"_Naruto_." Gaara was suddenly next to him and Naruto jumped back with a cry.

"_Gah! Gaara you scared the hell out of me!_" He accused his friend who only blinked and didn't look the least bit contrite.

"_What are you doing?_" The redhead asked instead.

"_Looking for you._" Naruto grinned. "_I've found something really cool that you've got to see_."

Gaara turned and walked away, back towards the office Umbridge had just left. "_Oi, Gaara, where're you going?" _

"_Umbridge left her office." _

"_Are you going to break in?" _

"_Yes." _

"_Alright. Let's do it!_" Naruto heartily agreed, inviting himself into Gaara's planned burglary session. Since his friend didn't object he figured that Gaara didn't mind.

Umbridge's office was very bright and very pink, and it had fluffy things and pillows and porcelain cats and for whatever reason the woman had opted to place a bunch of painted plates on the wall behind her desk. It was frilly and looked like the kind of place where he could break things just by looking at them. All in all it made Naruto feel very out of place, as if he should dust off his clothes and polish his shoes.

"_Hey… what're we looking for?_" Naruto asked, eyeing a porcelain cat with a large flower necklace around its neck. It had beady eyes and wore a worrying grin and Naruto resisted the urge to turn it around or 'accidentally' topple it. "_Incriminating evidence? Do you think the toad's in league with that Voldymort guy?_"

Gaara didn't appear to be concerned about accidentally breaking anything but then again Gaara rarely seemed concerned about anything. He did seem to know his way around the office thought, because he walked up the desk without glancing at anything else. Huh, all of the beady eyed cats in the world probably wouldn't concern him.

Gaara picked up a pen and examined it closely before setting the tip to a paper and drawing a line. At once the sand he kept in a bag streamed out only to hover uncertainly in the air. Naruto watched the performance with confusion, wondering what was going on.

"_Watch._" Gaara mumbled, holding up his hand and Naruto's eyes widened when he saw the skin being split open on the back of his hand, causing blood to trickle out. The sand circled almost worriedly around the hand.

"_Gaara._" Naruto protested. "_Wha-_"

"_I've only bled twice before…_" Gaara muttered, frowning down at his hand. At the blood there. Right, Naruto thought. When Sasuke slammed a chidori into his shoulder… he wondered when the second time was. "_It's easier this time._" Naruto watched his friend, wondering what was running through Gaara's mind. Then Gaara set down the pen again and crunched up the paper where his blood was. He pushed it into the bag Dumbledore had given him to keep his sand in. "_Umbridge uses that pen during detention._"

"_Wait, you mean Harry has to sit here and cut up his hand with that thing?_" Naruto asked, incensed. He nearly ran out of the room to find the toad but Gaara held his hand up again. This time the line was gone. The blood too, and Naruto wondered where it'd gone.

"_It heals_." The redhead said and turned to walk out.

"_That doesn't matter._" Naruto fumed. "_She has no right to do that to Harry._"

Gaara glanced at him, tilting his head a little, but didn't reply. Instead he just walked out of the office and Naruto followed him, still troubled and angry about the display.

It wasn't until much later that evening that he realised that he'd completely forgotten to show Gaara his awesome ramen-making room.

* * *

Kankurou awoke and with a satisfied groan he stretched out his limbs, feeling sleep's last tendrils slowly loosen its hold on his joints. Remaining in bed for a moment he lazily put his hands behind his head and stared up at the blue canopy. Say what you wanted about these magic folk but they sure knew how to make beds. He hadn't slept this well since… well; actually he hadn't slept this well since before Gaara moved in with them after their uncle… died. He'd never tell Gaara that of course but in the privacy of his own mind he knew it was true.

This mission was turning out to be a dozy and he was itching for a proper fight. Besides he was starting to worry that his skills would suffer if he didn't get in some practice soon. They needed to find some place where they could hone their skills unless they wanted to be utterly unprepared when the time to fight arrived.

It'd come eventually. It always did.

Still there was also some part of him that was craving the downtime. The past couple of months had been insane. First of it had been the chuunin exams which had only served as a front to invading Konoha, then Gaara very nearly loosing his damn mind and Shukaku awakening in a way he hadn't done in months. And somehow some little blond Konoha idiot had stopped it, although Kankurou suspected that some part of Gaara's less murderous inclinations of late could be the product of their father's death. The Kazekage's death had shook Suna to the core and even if Kankurou was grateful that Gaara was less likely to kill on a whim… their father's death had still hurt. Not just because he'd been their Kazekage but because he was their father – not the best father perhaps but he'd been the only one they'd had. After that there'd been the rescue of their new/old allies of the Leaf, only to be followed by a rescue in return by the Leaf. Perhaps the lot of them had needed a bit of down time, even if that down time was gained during a year long mission.

Yawning he got out of bed and made his way into the bathroom, intent on taking a shower before dressing. The other boys in the dorm were all still asleep, apparently these magic folk didn't work on Saturdays – they even had a name for it: Weekend. Meaning that the last two days of the week was free time to be used as they wished. And they didn't need to wear those damn stupid robes. Sensible clothes, here I come, Kankurou thought with a smirk and stepped into the shower. Huh, he still thought it mad to waste water like this but what the hell… what was it he'd heard those 'muggle' people say? When in Rome do like the Romans do. Whatever it was that the Romans did that was so great.

"Yo." He said when he came back from the shower and saw that the other guys were waking up. "You people sure like to sleep in, don't you?"

"Hey, give us a break. It's Saturday and this week's been hell." Terry yawned and looked around blearily.

"Yeah, we all need our beauty sleep, don't we?" Michael agreed, face still half buried in his pillow.

"Some more than others." Anthony said, indicating the still dozing Shikamaru. Lazy ass excuse of a ninja, Kankurou thought and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah well, let's wake the lazy bastard up, ne?" He said aloud and smirked.

"Ne? What's that again?" Michael asked, suddenly alert. It was just Kankurou's luck to end up in a house filled to the brim with know-it-all's that seemed hell bent on getting to know even more. Their new obsession being the Japanese language. Most of the time he didn't know how to explain and this was one of those occasions, so he shook his head.

"I'm not a damn dictionary, alright? Get off my back." He snorted and walked over to Shikamaru's bed. "Now what was that water spell again?"

"Aguamenti. Christ, I've told you like ten times already, can't you…" Terry replied.

Kankurou grinned and pointed his wand at Shikamaru's face: "Aguamenti, _you lazy ass bastard_."

* * *

Needless to say Shikamaru gave him a filthy glare by the time he joined him for breakfast in the Great Hall. Kankurou grinned in response: "About time you got your ass down here. Food's almost all gone. You're lucky Naruto's not in our house."

That caused a fair share of chuckles amongst the other students since over the past week Naruto's eating habits had gained near legendary status. Even if he did keep whining about there not being any ramen he still seemed to manage gulping down almost every last crumb of… anything within reach.

"Che." The other shinobi grunted and sat down next to him. He didn't say anything for a few moments while he piled food onto his plate and started eating. _"We should try meeting up with the others today, there's much that we need to…"_

"Hey! Shikamaru! Bat-brain!" Naruto's yell was loud enough to cause a lot of other conversations to be cut short and curious eyes turned first Naruto's way and then theirs.

"Hey! Don't call me that, asshole!" Kankurou yelled back, standing up furiously. Next to him he saw Shikamaru resting his head against his palm with a faraway look on his face.

"Do no call asshole!" Naruto hollered back.

Around them Kankurou was aware that people were laughing and never one to back down to some real life performing he struck a cocky pose.

"Or what? A little brat like you going to beat me up, are you?" He said and fired of a smirk.

"Or perhaps a teacher like me shall remove ten points from both of your houses, Mr Sabaku." A stern voice said behind him and he turned only to find that old hag McGonagall glowering at him. "I do believe we've had this discussion before, Mr Sabaku. I don't allow my students to use such language."

"We're not even in class!" Kankurou argued. "It's Saturday. Aren't we supposed to be allowed to do as we please?"

"Good manners don't take days off, Mr Sabaku. I'd advice you to watch your tongue whilst in a teacher's presence, Saturday or not." McGonagall said. "I'll let it slide for now but don't do it again, do you understand?"

Kankurou glared at the meddling old woman. There was no winning with this old bat was there? "Yeah, fine. Whatever."

"Very well, Mr Sabaku. I hope you enjoy the remainder of your weekend." McGonagall said with a tense little smile before walking away. Bah, the old hag might as well have patted him on the head and called him a good boy.

The Great Hall had gone nearly completely silent during their exchange and now slowly conversation started up again. A fair lot of which he suspected featured himself, Naruto and McGonagall. Grunting he sat back down and glared left and right.

"_That old bat is on me like a dung beetle on shit_." He muttered.

"_Perhaps you should quit getting caught swearing like a chimneysweeper_." Shikamaru drawled.

"_What's the matter with you? Don't tell me you're still pissed off about a little water in the face._" He said, resting his arms on the table.

Shikamaru gave him a lazy look that really could mean anything. "_Temari's coming over._"

Looking up he saw that indeed his sister was making her way towards them, drawing the eyes of several boys along the way since she wasn't dressed in the concealing school robes but something similar to her ordinary attire. One quick look around at the other girls confirmed that it showed of a bit more skin than what was common for these magic folk.

"_You think I'll have to beat them up?"_ Kankurou asked.

"_Who_?"

Glancing at the other boy he frowned. It wasn't common for that egghead to fail to notice something. Curious… _"Those little bastards drooling over my sister."_

He saw the other boy do a quick sweep with his eyes. _"Better not. It'd be…"_

"_Troublesome. Yeah, I know."_ Kankurou filled in and then grinned. _"Besides, Temari can beat the shit out of the lot of them if she wanted to."_

"_Such a troublesome woman."_ Shikamaru sighed.

"_You said it."_ Kankurou agreed.

* * *

"_What're they up to?_" Kankurou asked, indicating the people down below with a nod of his head. On Naruto's suggestion the four shinobi had climbed a rickety stairway into an equally rickety tower. It was all built with wood and was overlooking a huge sandpit where several people were gathered, holding brooms. "_If they're trying to sweep that up someone might want to tell them it's useless._"

"_Nah, it's the Gryffindor quidditch team._" Naruto replied quickly, almost boastfully, leaning out of the large window with enthusiasm. "_It's one of those wizard-games and it's really cool. They fly on brooms and beat each other up with balls. Ron's on the team now! I helped him train!" _

"_Meh, it can't be very difficult, if those weaklings play it._" Kankurou drawled, delighted when Naruto's shot him a pouty-faced kind of sour look.

"_It's awesome!"_ Naruto exclaimed, as if saying it especially loud somehow made it true.

"_Yeah, yeah, and gizzard tastes like chicken._" Kankurou replied.

Naruto pulled a revolted face. "_You eat gizzard?_"

Truthfully he'd never been fond of gizzard, that was Gaara's thing, but this little brat didn't need to know that so instead Kankurou smirked toothily and said; "_What? Can't you handle a little gizzard on your plate? Bah, you leaf-nin must have weak stomachs from all that ramen and pork._"

"_Oh yeah?_" Naruto challenged. "_Next time we're in Konoha I'll show you just how weak our stomachs are! I challenge you to an eating contest! Suna versus Konoha!_"

Never one to back down from a challenge Kankurou stood taller. "_You're on brat! Me, Temari and Gaara against you and-_"

"_Cut it out you two,_" Temari barked. ", _and try acting like shinobi for once. We have a mission and we need to exchange information if we're going to be effective. Besides I'm not joining in some trash eating contest with either of you._"

Naruto grinned in triumph. "_Yeah! I win!_"

"_How the hell is that winning? We haven't even started the contest!_" Kankurou barked at him.

"_Yeah, but you're already down one member_." Naruto countered.

"_You don't even have a team._" Kankurou drawled and crossed his arms across his chest.

For a moment Naruto looked uncertain, then: "_Shikamaru will-" _

"_No."_ Came the at once quick and lazy reply from the shadow ninja.

"_Heh, looks like I win. I've still got my little bro backing me up._" Kankurou smirked. He'd barely finished the sentence when the door opened and Ino stepped in, closely followed by Gaara.

"_Oh yeah? I bet Gaara doesn't even like gizzard. Right, Gaara?_" Naruto said, quickly throwing an arm around the redhead's shoulder. The look on Gaara's face was… impossible to describe, and in that expression's wake followed a deafening silence. "_What?_" Naruto asked, clueless as ever as to why everyone was suddenly very still.

Slowly Gaara reached up and removed Naruto's arm, using the kind of befuddled gentleness that usually hid something else. What, Kankurou for once, wasn't sure.

"_I guess we can start the meeting now._" Temari said.

Kankurou grunted in agreement, glancing at Gaara as the redhead stood back from Naruto. Well at least he didn't seem homicidal, Kankurou thought with relief as Shikamaru officially opened the meeting.

He was only listening with one ear while Shikamaru explained the circumstances surrounding his and Kankurou's little excursion into the forbidden forest the other day. Kankurou knew all of it – he'd been there after all. Not that their search for Ino's mystery chakra had unveiled any hidden conspiracies. Or anything at all really, unless you counted a lot of trees and wasted time.

"_So you didn't sense anything at all?_" Ino asked, as if the girl hadn't understood it the first time Shikamaru explained it.

"_Not a damn thing._" Kankurou muttered, looking out the window when he noticed some other students gathering on the bleachers surrounding the pit. "_Quiet as the grave out there._" Unless you counted huge spiders; he'd spotted some from afar but had wisely decided to keep a distance. They had nothing to do with any chakra anyway.

"_Well I did feel it!_" Ino said firmly. As if anyone had questioned her. Well, Kankurou had but she certainly hadn't been there when he and the Nara had decided to call the quits on the chakra search and he'd told Shikamaru that his team-mate was probably just having her monthly 'female-time' or something. No harm no foul.

"_It's possible that it's only another one of those weird reactions that we've experienced before when chakra and magic mix, right?_" Temari cut in.

"_Like with my clone. It went… evil or something._" Naruto said.

"_Evil?_" Ino asked, sounding alarmed.

"_Why were you making a clone? You're supposed to keep a lid on the chakra._" Temari said at the same time.

"_No one else was there, I was in the dungeons and couldn't find my way out so I made a clone so I could make a rasengan and-_"

"_You were going to blow out the castle wall._" Shikamaru concluded, sounding resigned and Naruto chuckled sheepishly, then yelped.

"_Gah, why did you do that, Ino?_" Naruto complained.

"_Because you're an idiot. You can't blow up Hogwarts! You'd blow our cover._" Ino hissed back.

"_I wasn't going to blow it up, only make a hole so-" _

"_No holes._" Ino ordered firmly. "_Or I'll sick Sakura on you when we get back._"

Naruto did some low grumbling at that, some of which sounded a lot like 'as if I'm afraid of Sakura-chan'. Kankurou smirked, remembering just who the blond brat had been running from the first time they met.

"_Naruto._" Gaara, of all people interrupted. It was surprising enough to make Kankurou turn his head briefly to glance at his brother. Perhaps he'd got over his shock about the earlier arm-around-shoulder incident and had decided to kill the brat after all. "_In what way was your clone… evil?_"

"_Oh that._" Naruto said thoughtfully. "_Uhm…Well it was just… evil, you know, like telling me a bunch of nasty stuff about… but I kicked its stupid ass._"

"_Did it attack you?_" Gaara asked and the other shinobi looked at Naruto curiously. If their own chakra clones could turn on them… well, that could turn into a huge mess. But Naruto shook his head quickly.

"_Nah, it was just being a real jerk. So I punched its lights out._" The blond said, miming a punch with his fist in demonstration.

"What's that Weasley riding? Why would anyone put a flying charm on a mouldy old log like that?" A jeering voice cut through their conversation and Kankurou turned his attention back to the sand pit. Only the people down there wasn't there anymore but hovering mid-air on the brooms, and from what he could tell it wasn't them that had been yelling but the people on the bleachers. That group was currently laughing and jeering at the ones flying.

"Hey, Johnson, what's with that hairstyle, anyway?" A girl shrieked from the bleachers. "Why would anyone want to look like they've got worms coming out of their head?"

"_Gah! What the hell is their problem?"_ Naruto barked and nearly barrelled into Kankurou in his hurry to reach the window to lean out and yell: "_Shut up! Shut your big fat mouths or I'll shut them for you, bastards!"_

"_They can't understand you."_ Kankurou commented dryly.

"_What're you yelling about anyway?_" Ino asked flippantly.

"_Those stupid Slytherins are destroying the training!_" Naruto cried, pointing down at the Slytherins.

"_Haven't you heard?_" Ino said, smiling a haughty smile. "_All's fair in love and war, Naruto. Besides, in terms of stupidity, that's where the Gryffindors really leave their mark_."

Kankurou eyed the two arguing Konoha ninja, silently deciding that both of them had got too involved with Hogwart's affairs if they were going to squabble over who was in the better House. Anyway this whole House system seemed like the perfect system if you wanted to create tensions between the students – built on competition of virtues and points.

"_What're the Slytherins up to?_" Temari asked Ino, interrupting the impending argument.

"_They're planning to make the Weasel- er – Weasley nervous and ruin the training._" Ino replied. "_Tsk, the way they were going on about it you'd think they were planning an assassination._"

"_Psychological warfare._" Shikamaru said, leaning back in his seat and sprawling out lazily. "_Not too shabby coming from a bunch of weaklings_." Kankurou said. "_If they can upset that Ron guy and take him off his game they'll disrupt the whole team._"

"_But that's cheating!_" Naruto argued.

"_No, it's not. If the Weasel-ley can't keep his own wits about him during training how is he supposed to during a match? Do you think they'll be yelling nicer things then?_" Ino argued. "_Besides there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of your opponent's weakness. That's just the way you win_." She added a sweet smile at the end. A very sweet smile.

It took some doing but eventually they got back on track on the meeting and Temari had just voiced her opinion that they needed to know more about the effects the magic was having on their chakra when Kankurou recalled the thought he'd had that morning. About how they needed to get someplace to train; and he certainly needed to check over his puppets. If left too long untended they'd be useless in a fight. So he told them all this and at least his fellow shinobi agreed with him, although like him they didn't know where they could train without being detected.

"_How about the forest? It's not like there's someone living there right?_" Ino suggested.

"_It's too open._" Shikamaru said. "_Anyone could wander in at any time._"

"_The students are banned from the forest_." the blond argued.

"_That doesn't seem to have very much effect since according to Dumbledore several students have been caught sneaking around there every year. Not to mention that the teachers aren't banned from going in there._" Shikamaru said with a shrug.

"_And if someone would spy on the school they'd probably do it from there._" Temari added.

"_Bah, from what I've seen we could handle a few of those Death Eaters without breaking a sweat._" Kankurou snorted and watched when that redhead Gryffindor Ron managed to smack one of his team-mates in the face. He couldn't help but snicker at the spectacle. What a looser.

"_And if they're from that magical ministry of theirs? We can't go around killing their officials._" Temari said.

"_Why not? It's not my fault if they get in the way._" He replied carelessly.

"_Because it's not the mission, dumbass._" His sister replied simply and he shrugged.

"_I got it, I got it!_" Naruto exclaimed. Kankurou rolled his eyes, having already decided that whatever the blond was going to say would be something stupid. "_I've got the perfect place! It's full of ramen but-_"

"_What do you mean it's full of ramen?_" Ino asked doubtfully. "_Have you been hallucinating?" _

"_No, no, it's magical ramen._" Naruto explained and this was followed by an intent silence.

Kankurou could only take it so long before he started laughing. "_Magical ramen… oh, man I didn't think this guy could get any dumber and…" _

"_Shut up, bat-brain._" Naruto growled. "_It's real! I'll show you!_"

"_Sure you will._" Kankurou said and smirked at him, which predictably only caused the other shinobi to go off in another bout of 'It's real!' and 'I'll kick your ass!'. Ha, this guy was just too easy.

"_Naruto_." Shikamaru finally decided to butt in and slowly stood up with a sigh. While Naruto shifted focus to the shadow user, grumbling under his breath, the Nara sent Kankurou a look. The puppet master shrugged. It wasn't his fault the blond idiot was so easily riled. "_Where's that… magical ramen room?_"

Kankurou couldn't help but snort with another bout of laughter and Naruto glared at him again. Magical ramen room… how was he supposed to not laugh at that?

"_Huh, it's – er-_"

"_Bah, this guy doesn't even know where his magical ramen restaurant is._" Kankurou snorted, shaking his head and earning another glare from Naruto.

"_I do to! There's a stupid piece of fabric on the wall across from it and- uh- I think it's on the sixth floor. I can find it! No big deal! Believe it!_"

Kankurou rolled his eyes and turned his attention back on the game of – whatever it was those magic folk called the game. The girl that Ron guy had smacked in the face earlier looked kind of pale and wobbly on her broom, he noticed. He briefly wondered if he should help her out but quickly pushed the thought out of his head. He'd be forced to use chakra to help her out and that'd definitely generate way too many questions. It didn't hurt to keep an eye on her though. Just in case.

Behind him the other shinobi were slowly agreeing to go take a look at Naruto's magical ramen room later that night. It sounded as if they had about the same amount of fait in the whole affair as he did.

Then Shikamaru debriefed the others about that Potter brat's detention. Kankurou, once more, only listened with one ear because the Nara had already told him all about it. Predictably Naruto was pissed off about that vampire pen, telling them how they should talk to Dumbledore about it. Or possibly kick the 'toad lady's' ass.

In Kankurou's opinion it was a lame-ass punishment. Baki used to make him and Temari run barefoot to the eastern outpost when he really wanted to make a point – which under the scorching sun of the desert was no mean feat. Afterwards they used to compare the amounts of blisters on their feet, until they gave it up and just counted the blister free areas instead.

Now that was a punishment, the sand nin thought.

"_Tsk, why bother going to that Dumbledore guy?_" Kankurou snorted. "_Who cares if it's the norm or not? So long as it doesn't kill him we're keeping our end of the bargain. Besides, it might just toughen him up a bit._"

The brat would probably need it anyway. At least he would if that Voldemort guy was even half as dangerous as everyone were making him out to be. Kankurou did in fact doubt that; what he'd already seen of magic folk they were pretty dreadful fighters. He could probably conquer the whole damn country with nothing but a rock and a feather; he added to himself and smirked.

"_Let's leave it as it is._" Shikamaru said agreed. "_At least for the time being. It's not killing him and, anyway, we're not here to coddle him. Anyway we might be able to learn something from his encounters with Umbridge. Gaara, you have the best means of watching without being seen, can you keep watch during the sessions with Umbridge?_"

Gaara didn't respond for a long moment. "_Not on Monday._"

Kankurou looked away from where a couple of other players were currently guiding the bleeding girl back down on the ground – good thing they finally noticed her predicament because he'd begun to fear that she'd faint from blood loss. Tough chick. Gaara was frowning but didn't seem inclined to elaborate on his answer.

"_Why not on Monday?_" Naruto asked curiously. "_What happens on Monday? You don't have a date, do you?_"

"_What? You got a date?_" Ino asked, looking at the redhead instantly.

When Gaara only glared in response Naruto made a surprised face. "_Gah! You do, don't you? Who is it? Is she cute – I bet she's cute-_"

"_Idiot._" Temari barked, smacking him over the head hard enough to send him stumbling. "_It's not about a date._"

"_Yeah, Gaara doesn't have a date._" Kankurou agreed, sending his younger brother a suspicious glance. "_You don't right?_"

Gaara's glare was taking on that 'if looks could kill' look, which in Gaara's case wasn't so far off actually, so Kankurou quickly stepped back waving a hand to signal that he was only joking. He could only hope that Gaara got the message. When the redhead abruptly turned his head away and muttered a gruff sounding "_Idiot_" Kankurou figured he was forgiven. At least to the extent that Gaara was capable of forgiving anyone.

"_So what happens on Monday?_" Naruto insisted loudly, dodging another smack from Temari.

Kankurou wondered that as well, although he had the good sense to keep the question from reaching his lips. Again. What could cause Gaara of all people to… Oh. His eyes widened in sudden realisation and he caught Temari's eye.

One look at his sister revealed that he had come to the correct conclusion and his insides clenched uncomfortably. Shit. Full moon. Glancing at Gaara, who was still not looking in his direction, he wondered how he'd fare with Shukaku this time. He had been doing better since the Chuunin exams but Kankurou knew that each full moon was a possible set back in the making.

"_Yeah._" He said, forcing authority into his voice. "_Monday's out for Gaara._"

"_But why?_" Naruto complained loudly, and was promptly ignored. "_Fine! I don't want know anyway!_" He muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest with a too obvious pout. Turning to Gaara he added in a ridiculously loud whisper. "_You'll tell me later, right? Right, Gaara?_"

Gaara closed his eyes, which in Suna meant "step away from the redhead with the gourd". For whatever reason Naruto interpreted the slight movement as a "yes" and the blond grinned and nodded with satisfaction. It was at times like these that Kankurou wondered how it was that the brat hadn't been sand buried several times over by now.

"_Right, you heard. Monday's out on Gaara's part._" Temari said sternly and set her hands on her hips, daring them to contradict her.

Shikamaru sighed, shrewd eyes glancing between Gaara and then both Kankurou and Temari. The lazy bastard knew something was up, that was for sure, but at least he decided not to argue the point. "_That means we need to get someone else to watch over Potter on Monday's detention. Troublesome._ "

"_Can't someone just hide in her office or something?_" Ino suggested.

"_We don't have anyone on our team that can do a concealment jutsu that'll last for any major duration of time. At any rate we also don't know for how long the detention will last and we also don't know whether she will remain in her office afterwards. Considering our precarious situation as shinobi in a place where the shinobi nations has been forgotten we can't chance being detected._" Shikamaru replied, thoughtfully resting his chin against his hand.

"_So then what?_" Kankurou asked. "_We've got to keep watch over the brat don't we?_"

Shikamaru heaved a sigh. "_There's nothing for it. Someone will have to get detention with Potter._"

"_What?_" Ino blurted.

"_Are you serious?_" Temari barked. "_Who'd volunteer to get their hand cut up?_"

" _Yeah! I'll do it!_" Naruto exclaimed at the same time.

They really should've seen that coming; Kankurou thought and saw that Shikamaru was smirking. The bastard had been counting on it.

"_Good_." Shikamaru nodded and stood up. "_Remember not to do any lasting damage on anything or anyone, and also it needs to be done in front of Umbridge. Make your move on Monday and make sure it's bad enough that no one can say that you don't deserve the detention. Even Dumbledore. I'm leaving the details to you_."

"_Yes!_" Naruto nodded his head, looking both ridiculously pleased and serious at the same time. The rest of the shinobi exchanged amused glances. Sometimes it paid of to have a knucklehead on the team.

"_I guess that's settled._" Shikamaru decided. Nodding towards the window where Kankurou was standing, he asked: "_Are they done?" _

"_Looks like._" Kankurou replied after a quick glance. "_That Ron guy smacked one of his team-mates in the face and it looked like she'd need medical attention._" He barked a laugh. "_That guy's totally worthless._"

"_Shut up! Ron's not worthless, you-_" Naruto began yelling again and Kankurou smirked again. Yeah, this guy was way too easy to rile up.

* * *

"_Look! There it is!_" Naruto yelled, pointing excitedly and bounding down the hallway towards the door. Kankurou blinked, looked behind him to make sure that they hadn't taken a wrong turn somewhere and finding that they hadn't. The door that hadn't been there the past few times they'd walked this hallway was definitely there now.

"_Alright, where did that come from?_" Ino asked, placing her hands on her hips in that way girls did when they expected a good answer.

Shikamaru, Temari and Kankurou all exchanged looks that clearly stated that none of the others had any idea.

"_Magic._" Gaara replied and walked past them towards the door.

Heh, Kankurou thought as he followed, that probably was the best answer anyone of them could hope for at the moment.

"_See? Didn't I tell you?_" Naruto said, grinning and pointing excitedly. "_I told you it was here. I told you, didn't I?_"

Obviously the little brat was relishing being right about something. For once, Kankurou added snidely.

"_Just open the damn door._" Kankurou muttered; he was in no mood to admit that the brat was right.

He didn't have to tell Naruto twice, because the brat seemed very excited about finding his magical ramen room – or possibly, more excited about being able to eat ramen again.

"_-all kinds of ramen and-_" Naruto babbled as he darted inside. A moment later a loud yell came from within and all of the shinobi instinctively jumped into fighting stances. "_Gah! What happened to all the ramen?!_"

Kankurou exchanged a glance with Temari, both relaxing again now that it was obvious that there was no threat on the other side of that door. Inside they found Naruto rushing about, looking behind shelves and chairs in search for his stupid ramen. As he was the last one to enter the room Kankurou closed the door behind him before taking a proper look around.

"_Hey, this is… this is actually great._" Ino said, looking around the large room. The walls were lined with weaponry and shelves, while the majority of the floor was left bare, prefect for a sparring match. "_I mean, we should be able to get some real training done in here, right?_"

"_It even got weapons._" Shikamaru commented, picking up a kunai from one of the shelves and examining it closely. Still the guy wore a frown as he looked around.

"_But where's the ramen? It was here yesterday. Where'd it go?_" Naruto complained, looking around. Then he frowned and looked suspicious. "_Maybe someone stole it._"

"_Yeah, someone broke into your hidden magical room and stole your ramen._" Kankurou mocked, walking over to the lone table in the room. He had to do a double take at the things he found there – mostly because they weren't supposed to be there at all. Shaking his head he turned back to the others. "_I've got a full kit of puppet tools over here. What the hell is going on?_"

This room was making him feel oddly exposed and uneasy and from the look of his companions' faces they probably felt the same.

"_Ramen, kunai, weapons and a puppet kit_." Ino counted on her fingers. "_It's as if someone knew about all of the things we'd need and placed them in here for us to find._"

"_This entire room is designed for us to improve our skills._" Shikamaru agreed thoughtfully.

"_But how is that possible?_" The bond girl asked. "_Has someone been spying on us or something?_"

"_Spy on us to hand us all the things we'd want?_" Temari said doubtfully, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "_Besides it doesn't have all the things we'll need. There's no way I can use my fan in here._"

"_Maybe the ramen-thief didn't spy on Temari._" Naruto said, nodding along with himself. "_He only snuck in here – stole my ramen and-_"

"_Handed us weapons?_" Ino finished doubtfully.

"_That's a crappy thief._" Kankurou snorted, eyeing the puppet kit with a mixture of satisfaction and suspicion. He felt his fingers itch to start working with them.

"_We're overlooking something._" Shikamaru concluded, his face taking on that 'thinking genius' look of his. The others exchanged looks again but no one said anything, instead letting the Nara use that humongous brain of his to figure things out. Eventually he looked up at them. "_Here's what we know; Naruto found this room by accident. When he found it; it was filled with bowls of ramen._" Naruto nodded along, confirming his story so far. "_We came here looking for the room but the door wasn't where Naruto said it would be until it appeared seemingly out of nowhere – exactly where Naruto said it would be. At that time we had walked past the same spot three times._"

He counted? Kankurou couldn't help but wonder.

"_Wait, are you saying the room isn't here until you walk past it three times?_" Ino asked.

"_That can't be right. If the room appeared every time someone walked past it a third time it would always be here. People are running around this school like ants looking for sugar._" Temari interjected.

"_Perhaps it has to do with intent_." Shikamaru said thoughtfully. "_Intent is a major part of spell casting. That's why certain people cannot ever hope to use the Avadra Kedavra curse._"

"_What curse is that?_" Ino asked. Which Kankurou was grateful for because it saved him the trouble of doing so.

"_The killing curse._" Shikamaru replied. Kankurou arched a brow. Killing curse? These weaklings had a killing curse? "_There are three major forbidden curses. One of them is the Avadra Kedavra. As far as I can tell, to be hit with that curse means instant death. Anyhow, all of those curses all have one thing in common and that is intent. You need to have the intent to kill in order to use the Avadra Kedavra otherwise the curse will fail. It's possible that this room works on similar premises._"

Naruto and Ino looked pretty uneasy following that revelation – looking at the walls as if they were just waiting to start closing in on them. Kankurou refused to let it show but he felt the same.

"_So what are you saying? That we need to walk past the right spot with a certain intent in mind?_" Temari asked. "_Like what we need?_"

"_It makes sense._" Shikamaru said. "_The first time Naruto found it he was probably thinking about ramen. Right?_"

The blond thought about it for only a moment before nodding eagerly. "_Yeah, I was really hungry and was trying to find a way to the kitchen. And then I started thinking about ramen._"

"_And this time when we walked past – what were you thinking about?_" Shikamaru asked.

"_Uhm… well I was thinking about the ramen…_" Naruto said, adopting a thoughtful look and Kankurou snorted. Predictable. "_But mostly I was thinking about how was going to show that stupid bat-brain that I could find a place for us to train._"

"_Oi, I told you to stop calling me that, you little brat!_" Kankurou yelled and Naruto blew him a raspberry in response.

That little blond idiot was really grating on his nerves.

* * *

Alright! Naruto excitedly closed the door to his magical-ramen-making-room and took a moment to just bask in the lovely scent of ramen. This room worked exactly as Shikamaru had predicted – the door showed up when you walked past it three times with a clear intent of what you needed in your mind. The shinobi had tested it several times, one by one walking past it while the others watched, and once inside the door disappeared until the person inside opened it again. Unfortunately it wasn't locked from anyone else when you were inside; the door could still appear to someone else even while the room was occupied. Still they'd considered their options and finally decided that they'd just have to be careful of intruders while they trained.

Naruto had rushed back to the room as soon as the others had said their goodbyes and gone back to their common rooms – training was all good and well but they still had other obligations to see to. Namely keeping an eye on Harry Potter and his heap of possible enemies. Ino had even managed to get Temari to agree to make another round in the forbidden forest to see if they could succeed where Shikamaru and Bat-brain had failed.

Still, Naruto had another mission and that was to figure out a way to get detention with Harry on Monday – so he'd rushed back to the magical-ramen-room to plot.

But first…

Naruto grinned widely, taking a deep breath of that wonderful smell: "_Let's eat!_"

An hour later found the blond, on his back and surrounded by empty bowls while he rubbed his wonderfully aching stomach.

Smiling happily the blond decided that it was high time he started to plan for his prank. He had two days – more or less – to suss out the best, most awesome, coolest way in the history of Hogwarts to get detention, Naruto thought and patted his full stomach.

So what should he do? And when? And to who?

Naruto pursed his lips in thought. He couldn't use any of his old tricks because he couldn't let these magic folk see him using chakra. And he wasn't very good at using magic – a lot of things just ended up exploding when he tried his hand at it. Frowning he realised that perhaps this would be more difficult than he first thought.

He couldn't even do his sexy-no-jutsu and… Naruto sat up suddenly, so suddenly that his stomach ached from the movement, but he barely noticed it because right at that moment Naruto Uzumaki was having an idea. And it made him grin with glee.

It was perfect. That stupid bat-brain wouldn't know what hit him. Now he just needed to make it work... somehow.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: Huh…? Late? Me? I… er… I took a wrong turn on the road of life.

In all seriousness I got busy at work – working retail during Christmas- and by the time things slowed down I'd sort of lost focus on this story. I got back to it eventually. Hope it doesn't disappoint completely.

Meh, I've lost count on how many "Gah!"'s came out of Naruto in this chapter – it's just that, well he's a loud sort of character isn't he? Especially as a kid. And yeah, I know Kankurou's not very nice to him – thinking about him as an idiot a lot – but I figured that Kankurou and Naruto… well they're not the best mix, are they? Again, as kids. They seem to get along better when they get older, I guess.

Speaking of Kankurou – I know I've made it clear that he consider the 'magic folk' weak but that's honestly how I think he would think about them. He's always struck me as the type of guy that feels contempt when faced with someone else's weakness. And also he seem to consider Suna superior to Konoha in terms of individual shinobi skill and strength, so I figured he'd be feeling kind of… superior to the wizards too.

So… finally I finished this chapter! I hope the characters are reasonably IC – more or less at any rate.

Please, leave me a review and let me know what you thought. Thanks.


	5. Chapter 5

Going Magic

Chapter 5: Into the woods

Characters: Gaara, Temari, Kankurou – gotta love the sandsibs – Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru and well, all the magic folk they run into over time

Pairings: Hmm, well they're kids so not so much. Possibly slight Temari/Shikamaru, and by the same definition you could consider there to be equally slight Hermione/Ron… I guess?

Set: Before Shippuden. During Book 5, Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter

Note: It's been a good long while since I read HP so I'll probably be fuzzy on several details – however since I'll be writing primarily from the Naruto characters' POV I hope this won't be too annoying. The plotline would be altered if a gang of shinobi would enter the scene, right?

Warning: Crossover? Is that qualified to be a warning?

_Italics_ - Japanese

* * *

The Forbidden forest was nothing like Ino had imagined it – probably because she'd sort of expected it to be more like the Forest of death back in Konoha. In fact, even after trudging through this place for nearly two hours she still couldn't wrap her mind around why exactly it was forbidden in the first place. It didn't seem all that dangerous – there were no huge snakes ready to eat you or nasty butterflies trying to snare you into a hallucinogenic stupor. Actually there was nothing! Least of all any mysterious chakra signatures.

This is stupid, she thought with chagrin. I'm stu-

"_Alright_," Temari said as she stepped out from around a tree. The older girl looked bored and a little bit annoyed; sending Ino a look that clearly stated that she thought Ino had just wasted a huge chunk of her time. "_This is stupid. We've checked this forest and there's nothing, so unless you want to sit down and have a picnic I suggest we get back before our absence is noticed._"

So, alright, maybe Ino couldn't explain that chakra she'd felt – maybe she'd even imagined it or something – but that didn't mean that she was prepared to let some haughty girl from Suna _tell_ her that she was stupid.

"_I'm going to check further in._" She announced, flipping back a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "_You go back if you want_."

With that she turned on her heel and began trekking further into the forest, and she could feel Temari's glare at the back of her neck. Huh, it wasn't as if she needed the other girl there – she could handle a stroll through a supposedly forbidden forest on her own. In fact, she hoped Temari went back to Hogwarts – that girl had a really bad attitude and that was the last thing Ino needed. Bad attitudes breeds' bad situations, any girl with some proper schooling knew that. Maybe she should put that little gem of wisdom to mind, so she could teach it to Gaara later.

Actually, now that she thought about it, perhaps she should extend her lessons to all three of the Sabaku siblings. She'd never met a family more determined to be off putting than those three. Seriously they'd argue with a tree if it tried growing the wrong way – well, Gaara wouldn't argue with it, he'd probably glare at it until it succumbed to his will and just-

Only the fact that she suddenly heard a noise caused Ino to halt her inner monologue and gaze around. She'd been walking for a while, she realised, and as she'd said she'd gone further into the forest. Around her the trees were high and their canopies thick enough not to let much sunlight through. The ground was dry and smelled of dead leaves.

Slowly adopting a seemingly casual stance which still allowed her to make a move if there was danger she looked around, scanning the ground and trees for the source of that noise. She'd begun to realise that while noise in a forest wasn't something exactly noteworthy, the reason that she had actually taken note of it was because there were no other noises. The forest was suddenly very, very quiet.

Well that was such an obvious bad sign that it wasn't even funny. It was one of the first things that Asuma ever taught them when he became their leader: When things went quiet it was usually because there was something bigger, stronger and way more dangerous nearby. Ino cursed the fact that Dumbledore hadn't allowed them to keep their kunai on them because she was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that she had no actual battle jutsu at hand. Sure she had her mind-transfer, which was great, but not adapted to battle, especially not in a one on one situation. And she was getting better at her medic-jutsus but again those were useless if she was attacked and alone.

Where was Temari?

Had she already gone back to the school?

If she yelled, would the other girl hear her?

Those three thought rushed through Ino's mind in quick succession, and she realised that she was dangerously close to panic. Taking a deep, steadying breath she scanned the forest again, calming herself as she continued to breathe and still could find no danger around. Bah, the other girl was probably already back at Hogwarts, stuffing her face, Ino thought and clutched on to a strand of anger instead of the previous fear. Anger was better than paralysing fear right now, she figured. And, besides, she was being silly again. There was nothing he-

She didn't even have time to scream when something wet and sticky abruptly snaked around her neck and dragged her up, off the ground while she kicked feebly to get free. He hands came up to try to pull whatever it was around her neck loose, but that only resulted in her hands getting stuck to it. Pulling ragged breaths between her lips she desperately tried to think of something – anything – to save her.

Something big and hairy abruptly dropped down to dangle in front of her face and Ino tried to scream only to have the sound cut off. The creature was huge, black and… all those legs, and eyes. It was a spider, she realised, and she was caught in a ridiculously large spider's web.

The monster snapped its claws in front of her nose and Ino gritted her teeth, placed a foot on the big hairy body and kicked, sending her spinning one way and the spider the other. She had to get the web off. She had to get it off before they collided again, she thought even as her eyes followed the spider's trail. Doubling her efforts she tried to get her hands free but they were stuck and –oh, she was going to get eaten by a monster spider. This was not the way she was supposed to die.

She was supposed to find love! Sasuke… oh, Sasuke…!

She was dimly aware that she had tears in her eyes, already dangling back towards the spider, when she realised exactly what to do. Medical-jutsu! It wasn't useless! She rewarded herself a mental kick in the back as she desperately collected her wits, and did the jutsu she'd been practicing for the past couple of months. Chakura no Mesu, the chakra scalpel, was as sharp as any blade and, she realised, if she wasn't careful she might end up cutting her own throat. She wished she'd practiced it more. Still she figured it was better than to end up in the belly of a spider.

The spider was speeding closer to her and Ino closed her eyes in order to concentrate. She could feel the chakra scalpel cut through the web and nick her throat, and she hurriedly pulled it back a little, continuing to cut the string of the web that kept her dangling instead, meanwhile she refused to spare even a stray thought on how close the spider might be. The web released her so suddenly that she ended up crashing to the ground, bumping her forehead against the spider's great hairy bulk on the way. She rolled and quickly got back up on her feet, just in time to dodge when the spider flung itself at her. With her hands still attached to her throat by the remainders of the web she jumped back and barely managed to dodge another attack.

She needed to get away from this monster. She couldn't get her hands free, the web was to strong to allow her to pull free and she didn't dare try to use the chakra scalpel again this close to her throat. Especially not while dodging a hairy monster of a spider that seemed hell bent on eating her.

It happened so suddenly that Ino ended up rooted to the ground in a shocked silence. She didn't even notice Temari dropping down from above, didn't notice her at all until the other girl was already on top of the spider, slamming her fist into the creature. The monster kicked its legs feebly for a moment before going entirely still, and Temari jumped down, giving Ino a smirk.

"_I knew I'd end up saving your ass eventually_." The girl commented, gesturing towards the creature with one hand. Ino noticed that her hand was covered in some sort of chakra – pointed as a blade and bleak as the wind in colour. Temari must've stabbed the creature with it. "_You're lucky I came back for you._"

Ino had to agree with that.

Still she wished that the other girl didn't sound so annoyingly superior about it.

"_Thanks._" She offered anyway, because really it was the only right thing to do, and then with a pointed look towards her stuck hands she added begrudgingly: "_Can you help me get my hands unstuck?_"

Temari smirked again, looking so irritatingly haughty that Ino wanted to punch her.

In the end Temari wasn't able to get the sticky spider web off Ino anyway – which in a conflicting type of way made Ino feel a little bit better, if only because the other girl failed at something. After a lot of grunting and muttering and hair pulling – which Ino was sure was intentional on Temari's part despite the other girl's fierce protests – Ino finally ducked away from Temari when the other girl pulled out a kunai.

"_Alright, seriously, back off._" She panted, eyeing the other girl warily. "_I'm not letting you go anywhere near my hair with that._"

"_Well what do you propose?_" Temari huffed, raising an eyebrow at her while she idly played with the weapon. "_Having your hands stuck to your head for the rest of your life?_"

"_Neck_." Ino snapped, mostly because she needed to snap but at the same time being without any real useful ammunition to throw at Temari. Temari only rewarded her with a pitying look and a smirk. "_They're stuck to my neck, not to my head, and there's got to be another way to get this stupid web off than cutting off my limbs._" Or my hair, she added mentally.

"_Better think fast, girl, because I'm not going to stand around forever just because you don't have what it takes to make difficult decisions._" Temari smirked, leaning against a tree while gesturing with the kunai.

"_Cutting someone's hands off is not a difficult decision._" Ino shot back, eyeing the weapon. "_It's like a big fat no-decision-ever-to-be-made. Any sane person would tell you that. _"

"_I wasn't going to cut your hands off._" Temari sighed heavily. "_I was going to cut through the web and free your hands._"

"_And what if you slip? You'd cut my throat open._" Ino said.

"_I don't slip._" Temari replied in a tone of voice that sounded scarily alike Gaara's.

Ino sniffed, as best she could with her hands stuck under her chin, and turned away. "_I prefer finding a not potentially lethal alternative._"

For some reason she got the impression that Temari was rolling her eyes at her. She refused to turn around to see if she was right. There was no way she'd give her the satisfaction.

"_Alright, let's think about this._" Ino said instead. "_This stupid web is sticky and obviously very tough. If we can't pull it off we've just got to find another way, like… like a solvent_."

"_And where are we supposed to find any solvents for huge spider webs?_" Temari asked pointedly. "_We're in the middle of a forest._"

"_Not here._" Ino said and turned back around; feeling better about the situation now that she got a chance to do the lecturing and not the other way around. "_At Hogwarts. We should probably avoid that medical bay if we can, because this would be kind of difficult to explain to the nurse. I mean she'd obviously know we've been out in the forest and I bet we'd get detention._"

Temari smirked. "_Not we, you. My hands are free and there's no way I'm taking the fall for you. And if you're going back to Hogwarts while you still got your hands stuck in a web you might as well go to that Umbridge woman and confess the whole thing. That way we know someone will be getting detention with Harry and Naruto won't have to accidentally blow the school to bits trying._"

"_We're in this together._" Ino snapped. The nerve of some people! "_We both went into the forest, it's only right that we both get detention if we're caught._"

"_But you're the only one dumb enough to get yourself tangled in incriminating evidence that won't come off._" Temari reminded her, smirk widening. Too much nerve and totally unpleasant, really. "_And I have no intentions of getting caught._"

Grinding her teeth Ino glared at the other girl furiously, which in turn only made Temari look even more pleased with herself. Guh, there was something seriously wrong with these Sabaku brats, Ino thought. Why did all three of them have to be so… so… damn annoying?

"_I was going to say,_" Ino said stiffly. "_That we can go to Snape. He's got to have some sort of potion to fix this and he already knows who we really are._" Then she aimed her own, much sweeter smile at the other shinobi. "_And if we do get caught on the way I promise that I won't be mad when you scamper off to hide._"

Temari's smirk fell away so quickly that Ino almost worried she'd injured herself. When she saw how tightly the other girl was gripping the kunai she instead almost worried that she might injure Ino instead. Let her try, Ino thought huffily and kept her smile in place. There was not way that she'd ever back down to this seriously rude girl.

"_Fine. Move your ass then so we can't get the hell out of here._" Temari snapped abruptly, tucking the kunai away and pushing past Ino roughly.

With her hands trapped the shove nearly made her fall but that only made Ino smile more. She'd won that round at least, she decided with no little amount of satisfaction before hurrying after the other girl.

"_What're you doing with that kunai anyway? We're not allowed to carry weapons on school grounds._" Ino asked when they were nearing Hogwarts again.

"_As if any shinobi from Suna would let some old fart of a client get them to give up their weapons entirely._" Temari said huffily. "_I gave up my fan, that's more than enough._"

"_But it's against the rules._" Ino protested. "_We have to do as the client tells us._"

"_What he doesn't know doesn't hurt him. Besides, if you'd had a weapon on you, you might've been able to defend yourself back there._" Temari replied. "_Actually, out of the whole lot of us here you're the one that would need a weapon on you most._"

Ino's step faltered and she stopped abruptly, glaring at the other girl with annoyance. "_What's that supposed to mean?_"

Temari stopped also, looking at her with an almost stern expression. "_From what I've seen your jutsus are not meant for battle, that's what it means. Even without weapons I've still got my wind, Kankurou's got his chakra strings, Gaara's got his sand and Naruto's got that rasengan move of his. Even the Nara's shadow jutsu is better suited for battle than yours is._"

Ino ground her teeth together – angry because she knew that the other girl was right, her jutsu was just not meant for direct confrontation, especially not without backup. But to have someone that was not Asuma point it out to her, whilst also pointing out that every last one of her team-mates already had some sort of weapon on them, really didn't sit well with her. Especially since this girl had a knack for being really… really disagreeable.

"_Well, I wasn't expecting to be attacked at some magic school for kids._" Ino replied with a sniff. "_Obviously._"

Temari gave her a look that made her feel very silly. "_We're on a mission._" She replied sharply and began walking away again. "_If this is how all of you from Konoha do your jobs it's a wonder any of you survive._"

Ino felt her face heat up – whether from embarrassment or rage she couldn't tell. Probably a heap of both because she found that she couldn't get her mouth to form a reply.

In the end they both kept their mouths shut for the rest of the walk back to Hogwarts, and Ino didn't mind at all.

* * *

Each Monday there was one sole minute – not counting lunch hours – where all four groups of fifth year students met in an often tense procession. During that one minute between classes Slytherins, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors all had the displeasure of traversing the same corridor, at the same time – the Slytherins and Ravenclaws going one way, towards the History of Magic classroom, and the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs going the other to reach the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Mostly the tension arose between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, each group staring and glaring, jeering and sneering at the other. Gaara had the impression that the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws merely did their best to keep their heads down and trying not to get caught in the crossfire between the two rivalling houses.

"Oi! Could you brats hurry the hell up over there?" Kankurou's voice sounded somewhere behind Gaara. His brother had never mastered the art of keeping a low profile or keeping his mouth shut. "I don't got all damn day!"

The hold up had happened only a moment earlier when Draco and his two hulking sidekicks had begun haranguing Harry Potter. Again. On the Gryffindor side of the argument were Potter, Weasley and Granger, with Temari standing right behind the Granger girl, looking both bored and annoyed by the situation. Gaara wasn't listening to what was being said between the two factions. It didn't matter, in his opinion. All that mattered was whether it'd escalate into a real fight.

"Who's that guy yelling at?" Pansy asked snidely. "Can't he see that we're busy over here?"

There was a low murmur of agreements from the other Slytherins but most of their attentions were on the happenings between Draco and Potter.

"_Do you think they'll start throwing magic around?_" Ino whispered and frowned at the two boys. "_I can't tell with these magic people – they spend way too long building up to the fight._"

Gaara did agree to that but didn't say so, instead merely keeping an eye on the proceedings and knowing that if those two began fighting in earnest they'd have to interrupt.

A part of him wanted to thump them both on the head and knock them out cold before they'd get carried away.

That'd probably be against Ino's 'social game' rules, though.

Gaara closed his eyes. This bored him and within he could feel Shukaku moving restlessly. It was full moon tonight, and the beast was growing impatient. As was he.

"Hey, I was talking to you dimwits up ahead! Move it, damn you!" Kankurou yelled once more, following it up with more than a few Japanese cusses. Gaara gazed blankly in the general direction of his brother's voice, the guy himself being hidden behind jostling students that were avidly watching the discussion between Draco and Potter, and he wondered how long it'd take for Kankurou's patience to run thin and for him to begin to push people aside or outright threaten them with bodily harm until they got out of his way.

"Umbridge is coming up the stairs." Someone, a blond girl clad in Hufflepuff yellow, announced but her voice was mostly lost on the other students – many of which seemed to want to see if a fight broke out. Some students did begin filing away though, not wanting to be caught there when a professor came onto the scene.

"_Great_." Ino muttered. "_That woman will probably give Potty even more detention for this_."

Gaara frowned. If he did that'd mean that Gaara would have to keep watch over him again. It wasn't a difficult task but he had long since lost interest in it. And it did rouse Shukaku each time he had to watch Potter's blood flow across the white parchment. Shukaku was also loosing patience, so Gaara quickly exchanged his range of thoughts to something less… red tinted. There was no reason to tempt the beast.

Suddenly the students behind him began to jostle more urgently, yelling and muttering at something and then there was an abrupt and chaotic commotion, interlaced by a sharp and clear chakra. Gaara tensed and he noticed Ino doing the same beside him.

"_Gah-ha-ha-ha-HA! I got you bat-brain!_"

The sound of Naruto's ruckus laughter sounded from somewhere behind a cluster of students, whom were quickly moving away from something.

"_What now? Did that idiot blow something up?_" Ino asked, quickly following him when he pushed other students aside to reach the source of the commotion. "_He said he wouldn't do anything danger- guh!_"

Whatever else she was going to say ended in a choked sort of gargling noise, her mouth falling open in astonished horror when they could finally see what had happened. Gaara also halted, just as abruptly, and then blinked. Once.

"_What did you do? Naruto? What did- oh…_" Ino babbled, going from loud to half-strangled disbelief even as she was talking.

"_Kankurou._" Gaara began, looking his brother's deformed body over, but not really knowing what to say he settled for crossing his arms in front of his chest and mutter: "_Idiot._"

He wasn't sure if he meant his brother or Naruto, or perhaps both for letting their bickering go this far. Kankurou only stared at him, frozen in some sort of traumatized horror, mouth working soundlessly as his face grew steadily redder.

"_Gaara, that's not the kind of thing to say at a time like… this_." Ino hissed at him while Shikamaru, who was standing behind Kankurou, finally shook of his shock and muttered a 'troublesome'.

That was when the laughing started. Mostly it was the Slytherins and Gryffindors, both groups sending the other glares above the laughter but at least they'd ceased fighting. For now.

"Silence!" Umbridge's sickeningly sweet voice screeched, trying to stilt the cacophony as she ascended the stairs. "Silence! I demand that you cease this behaviour this instance!"

"_Naruto!_" Kankurou roared, suddenly springing into action, reaching for the blond shinobi whom only narrowly managed to avoid the attack by doing a back flip which caused various exclamations to erupt from the onlookers.

"Gaara! _Grab your brother._" Shikamaru called across the corridor, already pushing past students to reach Kankurou. "_We can't let them get into a real fight and I don't think Kankurou's going to hold back._"

Gaara agreed with that; this time when Naruto jumped away from Kankurou he was caught by a chakra string, crashing to the floor with a thump and a yelp. Luckily, to the wizards and witches it'd only look as if the blond tripped but if either of them used anything more serious… If the other shinobi didn't get between them they'd be fighting a full-fledged shinobi fight in no time and they just couldn't allow that.

So he watched when Shikamaru went for Kankurou while Ino grabbed Naruto, holding him in place while Kankurou tried to pull him closer using a chakra string, and keeping herself between the two combatants. Shikamaru had gotten a hold of Kankurou's right arm, yelling for Gaara to grab the other while simultaneously telling Kankurou to calm down.

"_Let go! Let me go, you damn Nara!_" Kankurou spat, struggling against his hold. "_I'm going to kill the brat! Let me go! I'll fucking skewer his damn ass and wear his head for a crown!_"

"_Troublesome._" Shikamaru groaned, holding him firmly in place. "_Ino, keep Naruto away. Just-"_

"_I'll use his entrails to string a fucking ukulele!" _

"Get out of the way! Out of the damn way!_ What the hell is going on? What-" _Temari halted abruptly when she pushed a few snickering students out of the way and saw Kankurou. Her eyes went very wide, and then settled into an angry scowl._ "Naruto! What the hell did you do?" _

"_Stop._" Gaara said firmly, stepping in between them and staring at Kankurou. His brother glared back, his chest was heaving and his face was growing redder by the second. "_This is not the time_."

Usually that'd do it – his brother usually was more afraid of Gaara than whatever enemy he'd spotted – but this was not one of those times.

"_Not the time?! Fuck the time!_" He roared, wild-eyed. Gaara wondered if there'd be any other way than to use his sand to hold his brother off from Naruto. Perhaps they should just tell Naruto to run for it, because Gaara knew that using his sand was not an option. "_The fucker turned me into a damn girl! Look at me, Gaara! I'm a girl! I have to kill him!"_

"_Would that end the…_" Gaara tilted his head, searching for the correct word while taking his now girl-brother's appearance in. "_…spell?" _

"_Who the fuck cares? I'll –" _

"_Do you want to be a girl?_" The redhead asked bluntly.

Kankurou's face turned nearly white but for a moment he halted his rampage. At the very least he was starting to think his situation over.

"_Gaara's right._" Ino spoke quickly, still keeping Naruto behind her. "_Maybe they need this idiot's help to stop the spell. If you kill him now you might have to continue looking like… that._"

Kankurou was breathing deep and rapidly, murder in his eyes when he glared at first his little brother and then at her. Shikamaru eyed him with a sort of resigned air that clearly said how troublesome he felt the entire situation to be.

"_Let the little idiot go, Kankurou. We can kill him later._" Temari nearly growled, hands tightening into fists by her side.

"_Fine._" Kankurou spat finally, tugging the robe tighter against his – her – body and glaring at anyone and everyone around. "_But I'll kill the little bastard later._"

Gaara nodded.

"_Fine._" Ino agreed readily.

"_Good._" Muttered Temari and levelled Naruto with a nasty glare which made him cower and whine about how they were being unfair.

Gaara ignored his friend, instead locking gaze with Shikamaru who slowly eased his grip on Kankurou's arm. His brother tore his arm free with a cuss, glaring at the shadow user as if this was his entire fault.

Perhaps, in a sense, it was because it had been his idea to give Naruto free-range of getting detention with Umbridge. He'd probably not imagined that Naruto would've gone this far. Or that he even could've, Gaara thought and wondered just how great Naruto's control really was over his beast. A few days ago he couldn't point his wand without blowing something up and today he'd managed to turn Kankurou into a girl.

Around them the laughter was slowly winding down. Gaara assumed that it might've something to do with Umbridge standing by the stairs, looking white-faced and furious. All around them students were pointing and whispering, and Gaara felt an odd sense of relief to know that for once it was not him that was the centre of attention of those eyes.

"Who is responsible for this… this travesty?" Umbridge finally managed to speak, hoarse and angry, looking at Kankurou almost as if it was his fault. His fault for disturbing the peace and order of things.

"It was that blond Gryffindor, Professor Umbridge." Draco said with a smirk, pointing at Naruto as he pushed past a brown haired Ravenclaw.

"It was terrible." Pansy exclaimed, sounding and acting a lot more horrified than she had any right to. Especially since she couldn't have seen it happening in the first place. "He came out of nowhere and attacked Gaara's brother."

"Without the slightest bit of provocation." Blaise added almost nonchalantly from behind the couple.

Meanwhile all of the other students had fallen into a tense silence, watching the professor warily. Gaara glanced at Naruto, who looked a little smug and when he caught Gaara's eye he grinned and mouthed '_mission accomplished_'. Gaara closed his eyes and frowned. He didn't doubt that Naruto had managed to get himself thrown into detention, but perhaps it'd end in something worse unless someone got a hold of that old man Dumbledore.

"To your classrooms, all of you. Now, if you please." Umbridge ordered in a panicked sounding voice. Gaara opened his eyes in time to see the various students scattered about the corridor begin sorting out where they were supposed to go and milling off. "You four as well," Umbridge added when she noticed that none of the shinobi had moved.

"I'll stay." Temari said, turning towards Umbridge but the look she sent the other shinobi clearly said that it was meant for them. None of them were prepared to leave Kankurou alone with Naruto without supervision after all and she at least had an excuse to remain since she was Kankurou's sister.

Gaara frowned and wondered whether he should remain there as well. He couldn't do anything for Kankurou like that. It would be useless.

"Gaara too." Ino decided for him and gently nudged him with her elbow. He frowned at the contact but didn't bother to protest despite the shocked expressions on Temari's and Kankurou's faces. "_What? You're his brother too, aren't you? You should be there for him as moral support, it's the right thing to do._"

Gaara frowned. The right thing to do.

"No, I do not think that will be necessary. You two will walk to your classrooms and get to learning along with the other students." Umbridge said, walking down the hall towards them. She appeared to have gathered her wits somewhat again now that the initial excitement had settled. Order was being restored but from the look on Temari's face Gaara wondered how long that would last.

"But they're Kankurou's brother and sister." Ino protested before his sister had a chance to open her mouth. "Obviously they're worried about their brother's well being. You can't just make them leave him like… that."

Gaara frowned. Was he worried? Should he be? Was being worried the right thing to do?

"Do no speak out of turn, Miss Yamanaka." Umbridge lectured. "Five points from Slytherin. And I am afraid I must insist that- "

"On the occasion that a student of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry is harmed in any such grievous manner that the student might have to be sent to an off school facility, the student's family must be informed and will be allowed to retain contact at all times." Shikamaru said lazily. "It's in the school's regulations. Can you attest with outmost certainty that Kankurou will not have to seek medical help?"

Gaara glanced at his brother – and the definitely womanly curves – and doubted that even these wizards would consider this piece of magic an everyday event. Kankurou glanced at him, and for the first time since Naruto cast the spell at him did Gaara see anything but murderous rage in his brother's eyes. No that look held fear. It had been a long time since he saw that look in Kankurou's eyes.

"Perhaps we should ask the Headmaster." Ino said, waving a hand in that nonchalant manner of hers.

"My dear, I thought I told you not to take that tone with me. Twenty points from Slytherin." Umbridge said sweetly and smiled. It looked more like a strained grimace. "Now you two move along to your classrooms and wait with the others."

The woman never acknowledged that Shikamaru had just corrected her but at least she didn't argue the point as the two Konoha shinobi walked past her towards the classroom and Umbridge ushered the three of them off towards the hospital wing, and Naruto to wherever she was planning to punish him.

* * *

"Oi, Sabaku, you're looking as pale as the Bloody Baron."

Gaara looked up quickly and Blaise jerked, quickly backing away until he caught himself and frowned down at the smaller boy. Gritting his teeth Gaara quickly looked away from the other Slytherin, cursing himself inwardly. It was growing late. In the dungeons there were no windows that belied that fact but Gaara could feel it. Shukaku was stirring, rapidly. Too rapidly.

"Hey, are you alright? Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey." Blaise said, obviously trying not to sound too troubled.

Gaara stopped, already having turned to leave the common room. He forced himself to take a deep breath, pushing Shukaku down firmly. "I'm fine." He muttered, not bothering to look back as he made his way towards the door. At least he replied and at the moment that was as much of Ino's 'social game' as he could manage without biting someone's head of. Literally.

"_Gaara, where're you going?_" he heard Ino calling from somewhere behind him. "It'll be dark soon and we're not supposed to be outside after curfew."

He stopped in front of the door, glaring at it while he debated whether to reply. Or even what to reply if he did. Shukaku was calming again, a little, so he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

"_Out_." He eventually replied, not bothering to turn in order to address her.

"_Well that's kind of obv-_" she began but he'd already opened the door and shut it before she got to finish the sentence.

The moment he was standing alone in the dark hallway he forgot about his current team-mate and her incessant habit of talking and lecturing. Already he could feel Shukaku tugging on his restraints. It was time to leave Howarts.

His footfalls echoed forlornly as he walked the empty hallways of the lower levels of the castle, long shadows caressing his skin. When he reached the upper hallways the last, dying rays of the sun made his skin appear even whiter and his hair to shine bright red. In the shadows it would adopt the colour of artery blood.

He halted briefly when he reached the entrance level. There were still some students scurrying around, most travelling in packs and chatting away. Several of them cast him curious looks but none approached – which was just as well given the timing. He was not comfortable in social situations at the best of times and on the nights when Shukaku would stir… the only social situation possible would be one drenched in blood and screams cut short.

He still had time to leave the castle.

Perhaps he'd go into the forest. They'd called it forbidden and said monsters lived there. It seemed appropriate.

He'd barely turned to walk towards the entrance doors when a hand fell on his shoulder.

"_Hey, Gaara!_" Naruto greeted with a brilliant grin. It wavered somewhat when Gaara stepped back from the touch, and wavered even more when he aimed a glare at the blond. "_Wow, Gaara, come on. Don't give me that look! You could kill puppies with that look! Why're you giving me that… hey, I didn't scare you did I?_"

Gaara scowled.

"_Heh, I did! I scared you, didn't I? Oh man you should've seen your face!_" Naruto said, pulling a face that Gaara was certain did in no fashion resemble his own. "_Hey, you haven't met my new friends yet have you?_"

Gaara felt Shukaku stirring again. He knew that the beast always did whenever he was feeling particularly… well anything. Anger, fear, hate, annoyance and the demon would awaken. And now the barrier was weakening further due to the full moon approaching. While Naruto turned to wave over a couple of redheaded guys, that in every sense looked like the same person, Gaara promptly turned and walked the other way.

"_Gaara, meet… eh? Oi! Hey, Gaara!_" Naruto's voice yelled at his back then but he ignored it and merely continued walking. _"Man, come on!_ Sorry. Sorry. Gaara… ah… grumpy."

"Don't worry about it. We know…" He heard one of Naruto's friends say.

"…what Slytherins are like. Right Fred ol' chap?" the other continued.

"Why, indeed we do, George. Besides, I heard it told that…"

"…you turned his brother into a…"

Gaara turned a corner quickly and wondered why that comment about Slytherins made Shukaku… jerk; he supposed would be the closest way in which to describe the sensation. A sudden onslaught of anger and hate, gone as quickly as it came: that was a jerk. He became aware of that he was gripping his head once the sensation ceased.

When he looked up he found several other students looking at him. They wore expressions he didn't recognise, faces he'd not seen since… no.

"Are you alright?" A girl with black hair and slanted eyes asked. Her tone of voice was soft while she approached. "Do you have a headache? I can help you to the hospital wing if you-"

Her hand reached for him and he quickly straightened up and sent her a glare that made her stop in her tracks – hand still raised towards him.

"Leave me alone." He said and walked away. He only needed to reach the entrance and get outside; he thought and scanned the corridor. He recognised it, having walked it several times in the past week while everyone else slept. The entrance was just around the corner.

"Well that was rude." He heard someone, another girl, comment. He supposed that she was talking to the girl that had been trying to touch him.

"Don't worry about it, Cho. He's a Slytherins." Another girl chimed in just as he turned the last corner.

The entrance doors were right down the hall, towering and imposing. A quick scan of the hall told him that no one was close by so on silent feet he approached and opened the door. Finally outside he closed the door behind him and gazed across the hills. The forest wasn't far away and the sun was still up. Barely. The sky was coloured orange and red, nearly blood red. Blood. His thoughts always seemed to turn back to blood. These nights more than ever.

He quickened his gait, kept his eyes focused on the rapidly darkening forest and ignored everything else.

* * *

It had been a long night. The nights here were not colder than the ones in Suna, where the days were hot and the nights were as cold as the grave, but they were wetter. Gaara was not used to this sort of weather, and by the time the sun finally began to rise in the horizon his clothes were as damp as the rest of the forest. The cold seemed to have crawled its way into his bones and his muscles protested when he moved from his spot in the tree he'd chosen as his temporary haven.

Shukaku had been alive that night, whispering none words and endearments and when that failed; struggling against the seal with metaphorical claws that only Gaara could feel.

The demon had been out for blood.

But Gaara had not given it to him. Not this time. He felt a small measure of triumph flood through him at that.

As it were, Gaara didn't have any problems with blood or death or mayhem, but ever since his fight with Naruto… he'd found a new goal, or perhaps he'd finally found a goal that was worth pursuing, and this night he'd thought about his siblings. The siblings he had scorned and that had once scorned him, but who had still come for him when he'd been helpless.

They'd come for him.

He didn't yet understand why but they had and… he wanted… he wanted to be close to them. He wanted to _want_ to come for them when they needed aid. That was his goal, and part of that goal meant keeping Shukaku at bay. Deny the beast in order to be their brother.

Perhaps in time he'd want to want more… more people to acknowledge him as something other than the demon of the sand. For now Temari and Kankurou were enough, he thought and shivered as he started retracing his steps back to Hogwarts.

He'd seen some creatures in the forest during the night, odd creatures he'd never seen before, some nearly human in appearance but deformed in odd manners, but he saw none now and he wondered idly if perhaps they slept during the day. He'd spotted an odd looking horse with a horn on its head, and one of those muggle vehicles they called cars (somehow this one didn't seem to need a driver) and even a man that had had the body of a horse, but none of them had come close to him. The man-horse had shot an arrow at him, screaming some threat he'd not bothered to register, but his sand had swatted it away and the man-horse had fled into the forest.

Shukaku had been close to the surface after all. Few creatures were foolish enough to tempt the demon.

At one point he'd thought he'd picked up on another presence as well – the chakra of a shinobi – but he'd not been able to find it when he'd searched for it. Perhaps it really was as Shikamaru had suggested and it was only another trick of the magic surrounding Hogwarts, he thought.

Around him the trees were thinning, the darkness of an age old forest giving way to more open ground and he knew he was nearing the school again. He'd have to sneak back in. The sand clone he'd sent back to "sleep" in his bed was still in its spot so it wouldn't-

"Hello there, lad. What're ye doin' out 'ere this early? Students aren't allowed in the forest – they don't call it forbidden fer nothin'." A booming voice said, interrupting his thoughts. Gaara frowned and turned to glare at the intruder.

It was a colossal man, somewhat unkempt and with a great big beard and beady black eyes. Next to him was an equally oversized dog that unlike its master had the good sense to cower under the weight of his glare.

"Fang, what're ye doin' yer great useless lump?" the man muttered. Oddly the words contained no malice but instead sounded… warm? Gaara's frown deepened. "Yer hafta excuse 'im. He's a right coward this one." The man said with a smile that made the creases around his eyes deepen while he patted the whining dog's neck. Then the man seemed to catch himself and he straightened suddenly. "Now come along, lad. This 'ere place ain't fer yer little ones. Supposed ta be in bed, ye are. Ye look a right mess, all wet and shiverin'. Ye should be careful 'round 'ere. Could catch yer death in this 'ere forest. Come now, let's get yer scrawny behind warmed up."

One large hand fell on Gaara's shoulder, clearly attempting to steer him towards the school, and he stepped back.

"Not likin' bein' touched, eh?" The man asked, not the least bit taken aback. Gaara glared back, unsure of the man's reaction. The man shrugged his broad shoulders and stepped past him, nearly dragging the unwilling hound to follow past the demon vessel. "Got meself a cottage on Hogwart's grounds." The man confided. "Not supposed ta be back 'ere yet, I am, but I figured all the young'uns were still sleepin' fer a while yet. We'll get ye warmed up and fed in no time 'fore I go meet with the 'eadmaster."

Gaara gazed at the giant man's broad and somewhat hunched back, again unsure of how to decipher the situation. Social games, he thought with a scoff, were the worst sort of games. He'd never liked games to begin with. They never ended well for him.

Nevertheless he found himself following the man – at a distance. He watched him walk up the hill to the old cottage that he'd seen many times before whilst on Hogwarts grounds. He'd thought it was abandoned but now it appeared that its owner had merely been away. Once the man had opened the door he turned back towards Gaara and gestured for him to follow. When he stepped inside he let the door stay open.

Slowly Gaara did follow. He stopped at the entrance and peered inside.

The cottage wasn't any bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside and Gaara wondered briefly how a man of that size could live there in any kind of comfort. Yet the man appeared perfectly at ease, rummaging around in the kitchen rather loudly.

"Come in 'ere and close the door. It's a bit nippy out there; best keep the warmth in once I get the fire started." The man said and pointed his wand at the fireplace. A murmured spell later a fire sparked to life there. "The name's Hagrid an' that great lump's Fang." The man continued and put a kettle on the stove while Gaara slowly joined him in the cottage.

Ten minutes later Gaara found himself seated by an old rickety table, a steaming cup of tea in front of him and very nearly buried underneath a giant blanket. A giant blanket for a giant man, he supposed, and Gaara who'd never been and probably never would be particularly tall almost disappeared in its depths, but it was warm and… he didn't mind.

Over the past couple of minutes he'd learned that Hagrid enjoyed talking and the big man didn't seem to mind that Gaara hadn't responded once. Usually people would either grow frustrated or uncomfortable with his silence but Hagrid showed sign of being neither.

" – taking good care of them, she is." Hagrid was just saying, nodding his great head. He was talking about the temporary Care of Magical Creatures professor – apparently Hagrid was the usual teacher as well as the groundkeeper. Gaara regarded him silently and took a sip of the tea, it was a little bitter but it almost instantly made warmth spread through his body. "Feelin' better there, lad? Looks to me like yer gainin' some colour."

The redhead nodded slowly. Then after a moment decided to attempt that social game Ino kept going on about, and added: "Thank you."

Hagrid beamed at him, showing a set of yellowing teeth through the bristly beard.

Gaara frowned and drank some more tea. There was a knock on the door and Hagrid quickly walked over, opening the door.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, didn' expect findin' ye awake yet. I'd 'ave come-" Hagrid began, stepping aside to let the elderly man inside the hut. "Er – Would ye care for a cuppa, 'eadmaster?"

"It's well to find you in good health, Hagrid." Dumbledore said, smiling and doing that twinkling thing with his eye that Gaara had noticed him doing before. He wondered how the old man did that, and why. It didn't seem to serve any particular purpose. "I found myself unable to sleep this morning. An unfortunate side-effect of ageing I'm sorry to say. However I will admit that it's preferable to the alternative. A cup of tea would do me well I imagine." He smiled again and when he noticed Gaara under the mountain of blankets he didn't seem the slightest bit surprised. "Ah, Mr Sabaku, you're up early. There're still some hours before classes begin."

Gaara nodded, wondering why the old man felt the need to point out the obvious.

"Ah, yeah, found this one flounderin' about the forest, 'eadmaster. Thought I'd warm 'im up and send him right back up to Hogwarts." Hagrid said, scratching his beard. " Hope 'e is not in too great a trouble. 'e is a good lad, though not much of a talker."

"It's quite alright, Hagrid. I imagine that Mr Sabaku knows what he's doing." Dumbledore said, smiling again.

"Ah, yeah… er… 'eadmaster Dumbledore, 'bout why I'm 'ere… er…" Hagrid glanced at Gaara uncertainly. Obviously he wanted badly to talk to Dumbledore but wasn't sure how when Gaara was there to hear.

"I believe we can speak freely in front of this young man. Hagrid meet Gaara Sabaku." Dumbledore said calmly. "He's one of the guards I spoke of."

Hagrid jerked up, looking at first Gaara, then back at the headmaster with wide eyes. "But Professor Dumbledore," he protested. "He's jest a tiny little thing."

"I have to admit that this was my initial reaction as well when I expected a visit from the legendary shinobi and was greeted by what I perceived to be children. I'm sorry to say that I was most embarrassed to only have a bottle of firewhiskey on hand when they arrived. As I said I expected to be faced with adults." Dumbledore said. "However, the way I understand things they're considered adults in their home countries, and they have been doing a commendable work, I can assure you."

The bristly bearded man didn't seem entirely convinced, glancing between Dumbledore and Gaara uncertainly. Eventually he sighed, apparently deciding to trust the old man's judgement.

A few minutes later Gaara had gathered enough information from their conversation to understand that Hagrid had been away somewhere speaking to giants – trying to get them to join forces with Dumbledore rather than the enemy. As far as he could tell it wasn't going very well, but Hagrid would return to resume the talks. The only reason he'd returned to Hogwarts was because he needed the headmaster's permission to bring one of them to the school.

"I can't leave 'im, Professor Dumbledore." Hagrid said, sounding almost as if he was in pain. A pain of the heart? "He's me brother, he is."

"Perfectly understandable, Hagrid." Dumbledore said after a moment, placing a hand on the large man's shoulder. "However I cannot allow the children to be placed in any danger."

"I've already thought of that, professor." Hagrid said and grinned. "I can keep 'im in the forest. At least until he's ready to meet other people."

The old man nodded slowly, a fond little smile on his lips as he agreed and turned towards Gaara who'd listened to the entire conversation in silence.

"Come along, Mr Sabaku. I believe that if we return to Hogwarts we should find that breakfast will soon be served." The old man said, motioning for him to come with him. Again he did that twinkling thing with his eye when he smiled and Gaara frowned. That twinkling annoyed him for some reason but he couldn't pinpoint why.

"Bye then, Gaara. Ye jest come by some time when I'm back fer good an' I'll treat ye to some tea an' bisquits." Hagrid said, waving his big hand when they left the hut.

* * *

"I am not entirely unfamiliar with students who are victims to special circumstances." Dumbledore said while they were walking across the bridge that connected Hogwarts to the grounds where Hagrid's hut was. He stopped and smiled at Gaara, who stared back at him in silence. Dumbledore's eyes were very blue, Gaara noticed. Blue and calm; and something else, something which he couldn't quite place, behind it. "I can assure you that should you need assistance I am willing to aid you."

Suddenly Gaara felt a jerk; a sensation close to the type when Shukaku would stir, and he saw… felt an old memory of Suna slam down on him like a tsunami. He saw the full moon, the dark sky, the knives hurled at him by -

As suddenly as it came it was gone and Gaara blinked rapidly, suddenly aware that he was gripping his head and groaning. Within Shukaku was… unsettled and he could only compare the feeling with the sight of a caged animal, growling at his spectators.

In front of him Dumbledore was gripping the side of the bridge as if his life depended on it, and his wrinkled old knuckles were white with effort. His face was considerably paler than before but his gaze still rested on Gaara. His eyes were no longer calm.

He knew that look. It was the same kind of look he'd received since the moment he'd been brought into the world – the demon, the threat, the one that murdered his own mother, who'd live to murder so many more – and he hated that look. He heard the whisper of the sand, felt it pour out of the bag that Dumbledore had given him and coil around him and he wanted very badly to let it lash out at the old man. Shukaku's urge to kill, the bloodlust that made his brain burn, intensified and he was dimly aware of his own ragged breathing.

At his side his hands were tightly clenched into fists. He wanted to open them, he wanted to command the sand to rush forth, encase the withered old fool and squeeze until… Gaara shut his eyes tightly and resolutely pushed the urge down.

By the time he felt the anger and burning hatred lift and he opened his eyes again he found that the old man had not fled for his life as he had expected that he would. Slowly relaxing his body Gaara stared up at the old man in silence, noting that the look in the man's eyes had lifted too.

"I am relieved to find that you have such tremendous control of… that being." The headmaster said seriously and Gaara blinked. Never, not once, had someone commended him on having control of Shukaku. "I can only imagine what strain it puts on you, Mr Sabaku. I must admit that it gave me quite a scare, as I've never come across anything like it before. I apologise for my thoughtless action, especially if it has in any manner brought harm upon you."

Gaara frowned, not being accustomed to being apologised to he didn't quite know what to say. "I would not have been the one to be harmed." He said eventually, opting for truthfulness.

"I imagine that you're quite correct." Dumbledore said, nodding thoughtfully. "Again I must say that I'm glad that you have the needed control of – what name would such a creature go by?"

"Shukaku." Gaara replied curtly, folding his arms in front of his chest.

"Shukaku." Dumbledore repeated, nodding again. Then he smiled, eyes twinkling oddly. "Thank you, Mr Sabaku. I do believe you might've saved my life just now despite my foolish and terribly intruding behaviour. Unfortunately old age does not grace one with wisdom and manners."

Gaara decided not to reply.

"I must say though that I believe having something like this Shukaku at such close quarters must be terribly taxing for you, Mr Sabaku. Am I correct in my assumption that this was the reason why you left the grounds this night?"

Gaara felt a tingle of suspicion towards the old man at that. How had he known that he'd left the grounds? And why if the man had been aware of it the whole time had he allowed it? It had been made very clear that no students – regardless of whether they were actual students or not – were allowed off the grounds without permission.

Again Gaara decided not to answer, instead holding out his hand, calling his sand back. He watched Dumbledore watching the sand swirl through the air, gathering in the bag that the man himself had given him. Once every grain of sand was collected the redhead silently walked past the headmaster and back into Hogwarts. He needed to get back into the Slytherin dorms and switch places with his clone before his dorm-mates woke up.

* * *

Draco Malfoy and his cronies were still asleep when he entered the bedroom he shared with them. Draco was sprawled across his bed spread-eagle, a foot peeking out from under the covers, while the two larger boys looked like a couple of great big lumps in the darkness. One of them – Goyle – was snoring loudly.

Gaara glared at that boy in particular, annoyed at the blatant show of comfort. Was this what sleeping soundly meant? He could only wonder.

Reaching out with one hand Gaara cancelled the clone that was "sleeping" in his own bed and glanced at the clock. After deciding that it would still be another hour before the other students stirred from their sleep he gathered his supplies and retreated to the bathroom.

After spending the night in the damp chill of the forest the hot shower felt ridiculously good – warming his skin and chasing away the numbing cold that seemed to have settled in his very marrow.

By the time he emerged from the bathroom and made his way back into the dorm the other boys still hadn't woken up. He took another moment to glare at them, annoyed at their comfort, before dressing for the day and walking out and into the common room.

He chose a book at random from one of the shelves lining one wall before sitting down in front of the fireplace and waiting for the rest of the world to wake up. He'd barely had the time to read the first paragraph before the door to the dungeons opened and Snape stepped inside.

The tall, thin man stopped when he saw him sitting there, and he regarded Gaara with those black eyes of his. For several seconds silence reigned in the common room.

"With me, Mr Sabaku." The man ordered, gesturing for him sharply.

Then he led him though a myriad of winding dungeons before ushering him into another room. It was a reasonably large room, low ceiling but that was to be expected while in the dungeons, but every wall was lined with shelved containing book and jars of different forms and seizes. In the middle there was a large workbench similar to the ones they had in the Potion class.

Gaara watched the man while he carefully stepped up to the workbench, still glaring down at him, and crossed his arms.

"Now, Mr Sabaku, I was informed recently of a breach of security. It appears that one of my students decided to not only leave Hogwarts' grounds but also preferred sleeping in the Forbidden Forest rather than being tucked away in bed as he should've been. Care to explain yourself?"

"I spoke to Dumbledore." Gaara said. He did not like being questioned and once was more than enough for one morning.

"I know you did because the Headmaster spoke to me." Snape snapped. Gaara wondered if the professor had been asleep when the headmaster called on him. A lot of people tended to be bad tempered after being woken up abruptly. "He feels that I should assist you on certain matters. Certain matters regarding something he called a Chukak?"

"Shukaku." Gaara corrected and was rewarded with a sneer.

"And what is this… Shukaku?" Snape said, his voice barely more than a hiss. Gaara also crossed his arms, not liking the turn this conversation was taking. "When I ask a question, Mr Sabaku, I expect an answer."

Gaara glared at the man, easily holding that black gaze with his own. He did not want to talk about Shukaku, he never did, and especially not now while the creature was still clawing at its restraints. " Demon."

"This was the reason you left the grounds? During a full moon?" Snape asked. He said the word 'full moon' as if it held any particular meaning.

"The full moon…" Gaara hesitated for a moment. Putting Shukaku's behaviours into words were never easy, especially not to someone who obviously had no clue of what a tailed beast was. "…awakens him."

Snape didn't look impressed. In fact he merely raised an eyebrow. "And this 'demon' of yours somehow keeps you from sleeping in your bed and instead causes you to go floundering about in the Forbidden Forest at night time."

"Yes." Gaara replied truthfully. He couldn't recall ever having slept in a bed. Or on many other surfaces either for that matter – even if he did fall asleep he never did wake up at the same place.

"In my opinion, Mr Sabaku," Snape drawled,"you should fair better in the care of a psych-witch that would care to listen to you prattling on about demons and monsters that live in your feeble brain. Fortunately for you the headmaster feels differently. In fact he's asked me to… aid you."

Gaara frowned. No one could help him with Shukaku; that was a job he and only he could do.

"Starting tomorrow you will be studying Occlumency."

* * *

When Ino stepped out into the common room she took care to move soundlessly so she wouldn't wake any of the other Slytherins. As usual she was awake before anyone else – except Gaara that somehow always managed to beat her into the common room – and she figured that breakfast should be served soon. She'd already opened her mouth to call for Gaara's attention when she realised that her redheaded team-mate wasn't in the common room at all.

Ino frowned. Where'd he gone to now? Was he still asleep? She'd wanted to get another lesson of 'social studies' in before the day began since he'd been stubbornly ignoring her last night. Seriously, if she'd thought he needed lessons in social conduct before, last night had proved it ten times over. First he'd slammed the door shut while she was still talking to him, and by the time he came back he'd only stared at her for a freakishly long time before walking past her and into the boys' dorms. All of it without saying a word.

And to make matters worse, she wasn't the only one that had notice his weird behaviour. Well, weirder behaviour. Several of the other girls had commented on it and had then proceeded to interrogate Ino about his supposed eye make up and tattoo.

Guh, Pansy had been convinced that he was in some sort of gang! This was just so not helpful in their situation. Why couldn't he just grasp the fact that they needed to socialise in order to get information? She couldn't keep socialising for him after all, because she already had enough on her plate, she thought at the same time that the door from the dungeons opened and Gaara stepped inside, carrying a heavy looking book.

"_Where've you been?_" Ino asked, sounding more annoyed than she'd intended, and he glanced at her.

"_With Snape._" He replied curtly, not so much as batting an eye.

Ino sighed. This guy needed to use more words, she thought, but that was not the lesson plan she'd decided upon last night. Still, it was a nice addition for another day. "_Don't you have something to say to me?_"

Gaara looked at her blankly – which she took to mean that he had no idea of what the heck she was talking about or that he had any inclination to ask.

"_You know_," She said, forcing herself to be patient. "_When a person talks to you they don't like it when you ignore them or close the door in their face._" Gaara continued to look blank, so she attempted to clarify further. "_It's really rude._"

Gaara frowned but still didn't say anything; instead he walked over to the sofa and sat down. He placed the book on the table and turned his head towards her, staring at her with those blank eyes of his.

Ino pushed her fists against her hips, giving him what she hoped was a stern look. "_You're supposed to say that you're sorry._"

The redhead didn't move a muscle but she saw his eyes narrowing a little, giving her an almost glare. Alright, she was being stupid again. She'd already worked out that stern and confrontational didn't work against this guy. So she sighed and changed gears by sitting down next to him on the sofa.

"_I mean, no one likes to be made to feel like they don't matter, you know._" Ino tried to explain without sounding too antagonising while doing it. "_No one likes it when someone else acts as if what they say or do doesn't matter to anyone else, right? But everyone does it sometimes because they don't think about how they're making that other person feel, and that's alright because… well sometimes you're just too wrapped up in your own stuff to really pay attention, I guess._" Somewhere along the line there, Ino realised that she wasn't really talking about Gaara anymore – all of that stuff was the kind of stuff she'd -

"_Sorry._"

That one word really sounded kind of odd coming from Gaara – more like a grunt and completely lacking of emotion – so it took Ino an astonished moment to really grasp the fact that she'd just made a breakthrough. Once it hit her she couldn't help but smile.

"_It's alright_." She replied cheerily, idly aware that Gaara was watching her warily – almost as if he expected her to bite his head of or something. Weird guy. "_So why were you with Snape? Did he have any news about Kankurou's …er… condition?"_

"_No._" Gaara replied.

"_Well I'm sure he's going to be alright._" Ino said, although she wasn't so sure. No one seemed to know how Naruto did what he did. Gaara didn't reply, but then she hadn't precisely expected him to either. _"I just don't get how Naruto did that._" She mused aloud. "_I mean, Temari said that a few days ago he couldn't cast a simple spell without something exploding. Just like yo- er… well, anyway… you know what I mean._" When her team-mate didn't reply she figured that he agreed so she continued. "_It's so stupid. You know he'd do that kind of dumb stuff all the time when we were still in the academy. Well, he never actually physically changed gender or anything but he invented this totally useless jutsu-_" Ino trailed off. She suddenly had a horrifying suspicion that she knew what Naruto had done to Kankurou. When she glanced at Gaara she noticed that he was frowning at her again but as usual she could glean no further insight of whatever was going on inside his head. "_Er… Gaara, do you think it's possible to mix chakra with magic?_"

The redhead tilted his head to the side a little, as if considering her question, but Ino was already convinced she was correct.

* * *

**Author's notes:** Guh, I've rewritten this stupid chapter too many times. I just can't get it to sound right, and now I feel like I've reached that point where I just cannot rewrite the damn thing one more time without scrapping it altogether. Perhaps I'll change it a little at a later date, when my brain isn't likely to implode from the strain. :P

Hm, I feel like this chapter is less fun and games than usual, but I suppose that's because a large part of it is from Gaara's POV. He's not precisely the most cheerful character is he? But I love him just the way he is. Perhaps that's why I was having such trouble with this chapter… 'cause I wasn't sure I got the Gaara-ness down right.

And also I was having trouble with Hagrid's lines… I just hope they're readable.

And Snape… *sigh* As I said, I'm not very happy with this chapter.

And since I feel like I don't do this enough I'd also like to thank you all for your reviews! They really make it worth the trouble of having your brain implode every once in a while. Thanks! :D

Review please, it really does make me happy.


	6. Chapter 6

Going Magic

Chapter 6: The Trials and Tribulations of Kankurou

Characters: Gaara, Temari, Kankurou – gotta love the sandsibs – Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru and well, all the magic folk they run into over time

Pairings: Hmm, well they're kids so not so much. Possibly slight Temari/Shikamaru, and by the same definition you could consider there to be equally slight Hermione/Ron… I guess?

Set: Before Shippuden. During Book 5, Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter

Note: It's been a good long while since I read HP so I'll probably be fuzzy on several details – however since I'll be writing primarily from the Naruto characters' POV I hope this won't be too annoying. The plotline would be altered if a gang of shinobi would enter the scene, right?

Warning: Crossover? Is that qualified to be a warning?

_Italics_ – Japanese

* * *

Black eyes stared down at the redheaded brat that was staring back- unblinking, emotionless and – disturbingly - without pupils. If it wasn't for the obvious fact that the brat could actually see Severus might've suspected him to be blind.

Severus narrowed his eyes, forcing down the urge to sneer too vividly as he stared into the thoroughly blank eyes of Gaara Sabaku. He didn't like the boy. He didn't like any of those brats that referred to themselves at shinobi. Ninja, Dumbledore had called them when he'd explained to the Order about his new hired guards, and despite decades of ignoring his mostly muggle-upbringing Severus' mind had instantly drawn muddled pictures of men in black hoods and wielding pointy weapons. He had not expected children. He'd certainly not expected to be forced to teach the dunderheads.

Granted, the redhead that may have been an utter menace to McGonagall and Flitwick, actually did manage to follow instructions in Potions but that didn't mean that Severus relished his company. He didn't trust him, he didn't like him and he certainly didn't want to yield any time he might have to teach the brat Theoretical-Occlumency.

Theoretical-Occlumency. The quagmire of the fabricated phrase was enough to draw a sneer to Severus' lips. Theoretical-Occlumency, because Dumbledore had outright ordered him not to make use of proper means to teach the subject. Because Mr Sabaku was under the delusion that he had a demon lodged in his skull.

Foolishness.

Such utter and unrepentant foolishness; it was enough to raise the hackles of any being privileged with commonsense. And he, as usual, had to put up with the entire debacle. Naturally Dumbledore couldn't tutor the demented child himself – that dubious honour fell onto Severus' shoulders. Perchance it was for the best that the gormless git didn't teach the boy, he thought bitterly. Too many bats in the same bloody belfry might just cause it to come crashing down.

Nevertheless Occlumency needed to be taught by trial and error and not through discussion. "I only ask that you speak with the boy." Had Dumbledore said, smiling in that confounding and annoyingly placating manner he had. "Teach him what you can without the use of Legimens." His protests that there was no effective way of teaching Occlumency to someone – certainly not some addlebrained gnome without magic- through talking fell on deaf ears. "Talk to the boy, my friend. Make him feel comfortable. Treat him to some tea and perhaps a biscuit or two. All children enjoy the taste of a piece of baked goods." That had been Dumbledore's parting words, and although said in outmost seriousness Severus suspected a jibe. For whatever reason the Headmaster expected him to engage in some morbid sort of tea-party with this boy and by doing so also doling out the delicate art of fortifying the mind from external intrusion.

Or supposedly internal in this case, he added and sharply motioned for the fool boy to sit so they may finally get this detestable waste of time out of the way.

* * *

Torquil the cat mewed. The noise sounded doubtful and apprehensive in Minerva McGonagall's ears; which was expected since the poor creature had just undergone a magical sex-change. Eyeing the cat Minerva silently promised never to use her dear companion for experimentation again. This one – certainly final – instance was however something that could not be avoided since she needed to see this chakra-fuel-spell Uzumaki concocted in order to reverse it.

"Did it work, Professor?" Miss Yamanaka asked. The bright young lady sounded as doubtful as Torquil had and she eyed the grey feline with a frown on her unmarred face.

Mr Uzumaki scoffed and babbled something in Japanese at her, quickly bending down and grabbing a hold of Torquil. The cat mewed in protest as he was thrust into the air, dangling from the blond boy's hands. "Look! Look!" Uzumaki crowed proudly. "Success!"

Minerva only absently noted that the boy had a red mark on the back of his hand because she had to force down a wave of indignation on behalf of Torquil that was mewing and snarling in turns due to the abrupt treatment.

"Mr Uzumaki." She snapped, causing the boy to look up at her with a look of utter surprise. "Unhand my cat this instance."

For a moment the look of surprise faltered into something pouty and grumpy and Torquil took the chance of twisting around in the hands that were holding him to deliver a clawed slap across the boy's nose.

Uzumaki yelled and thrust the cat away to hold his bleeding nose. Torquil, true to his species' reputation, managed to land on his paws and hissed at the boy in rightful indignation. Minerva quickly bent down to sooth him, while Uzumaki muttered what at least sounded much like threats at the cat. Torquil eyed him warily, sniffed audibly, and jumped up on Minerva's desk, flipping his tail in agitation.

"Stop whining, brat. You're not mortally wounded." Miss Sabaku said, flicking Uzumaki on the nose which caused him to yell again. The girl smirked, obviously feeling that it was well deserved. Minerva assumed she was feeling vengeful on her brother's behalf; however she would not allow such behaviour regardless of the reason.

"Miss Sabaku, I would appreciate it if you would cease such hostile behaviour. Corporal punishment is not permitted in Hogwarts, regardless whether it comes from a teacher or a student." She said sharply. She'd expected the girl to scoff or mutter something in Japanese but instead she exchanged glances with the other two ninja in the study.

Then followed a quick but, from the sound of it, heated discussion in Japanese, and Minerva could only watch while Uzumaki kept gesturing wildly, pointing at his hand, and Sabaku shook her head stubbornly.

They were a lively bunch these ninja guards, and in that respect acted much like any of the children in the school, but something in their tone of voice when they'd speak their own language often told her that what they were discussing were not something easy or simple like homework or the woes of first loves.

"Mr Uzumaki, Miss Sabaku." She said sternly, causing both of them to look her way. Both were looking stubborn, both were looking ready to fight to the death for their conviction – certainly both were Gryffindor in nature. "I don't have all evening to set aside for this project, and I don't allow fighting in any sense or form in my classroom. That rule also extends to my private study." And then, fixing them both with the sternest look she could muster, she added: "Five points each from Gryffindor."

Uzumaki spluttered and made some exclamation she didn't understand while Sabaku crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked resigned in a decidedly grumpy manner.

"Guys," Yamanaka said lightly. "I think it's better if we stick with speaking English. I mean, it's rude to exclude people, and we need to work together to make this reversal spell work for Kankurou, right?" The girl walked over to where Torquil sat on the desk, stroking him gently over the back and then scratching him behind an ear. "Besides, I bet that Kankurou's not dealing half as well with being a girl as Torquil does, and we don't want him to… well, you know, beat someone up or something."

That 'or something' sounded rather ominous in Minerva's ears, and considering what she knew of the elder Sabaku brother she had to admit that she suspected that time was of the essence.

* * *

It was mostly silent in the Hogwarts library, only the sound of pages being turned or pen meeting parchment and the occasional sigh from a hardworking student could be heard. Just like Madam Pince preferred it in her domain. As did Hermione for that matter, which was the reason why she was currently in the library instead of in the common room where Fred and George were being very noisy. She hoped that Ron could keep them from wrecking too much trouble, but doubted it.

A part of her told her to go back and make sure that they didn't do anything reckless but she'd needed to think. In peace. Peace was not a common commodity in the Gryffindor tower.

There were two things on her mind; one she'd already sorted somewhat and it was something she planned on talking to Ron about. She was certain that she could get him to agree with her that they needed to do something about the horrible lack of teaching in Defence.

The other was not so much of a thought as it was… several small thoughts, collected since the start of term. She needed structure to sort them, so that was why she had sat down here, alone and with a piece of parchment.

Putting pen to paper she wrote down:

**1**. Six exchange students – Nowhere in Hogwart's a History is there mentions of exchange students

**2**. Japan – Don't look Asian

**3**. Transfiguration – How did Naruto do that?

**4**. Temari's brother –Ghara? – What was he doing on the grounds with Professor Dumbledore?

She put her pen down, looking over her notes. Over all it didn't look damning in any way, but there were just things about them that she couldn't explain. The first notation could easily be explained away; just because it might not have been done before didn't mean that it couldn't and Dumbledore always had run Hogwarts as he saw fit. The second again could be explained away. Perhaps their parents weren't from Japan. That Ravenclaw – Schikamaro? – did look Asian, anyway.

It was the last two she couldn't make sense of and the fourth she was certain she wasn't supposed to know about in the first place, and she wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the fact that Crookshanks had wanted to be let outside for a while in the wee hours of the morning. But Dumbledore had been there so even if she was right and there was more to these six, she was reasonably sure they didn't mean any harm. Or that Dumbledore would allow it if she was wrong about that last part. Besides, they were just kids – she was pretty certain most of them were younger than her even – and they didn't seem mean spirited. Even that Ino girl -that Ron kept saying shouldn't be in Slytherin- and Ghara who usually kept to Malfoy's lot hadn't ever seemed like they wanted in on the Hate-Harry-Potter-Club. Or the Anti-Mudblood-Brigade, or whatever they called it. They just seemed to be… watching. Often while looking bored.

Like that silly fight Malfoy had instigated before the entire mess with Naruto and Temari's brother – Temari had been standing close by, on their side of the argument, and Ino and Ghara had been standing close to Malfoy, but none of them seemed willing to engage. But they had watched closely, very closely.

It was as if they were-

"Hey."

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin when a heavy book was dropped on the table and that guy, Schikamaro, slouched down in the seat across from her. He opened the book and began reading without another word.

"Er… Hello." She finally managed, quickly pushing her notes into her bag and hoping that he hadn't seen them. She didn't think that he had, he appeared very much engrossed in his reading. Out of curiosity she craned her neck to see what he was researching but she didn't recognise the book and the text was old and too scribbled to decipher up-side-down.

"Magical barriers." He said, glancing up at her and meeting her startled gaze. His lids were heavy and lazy but somehow his black eyed stare was piercing. He tapped a finger against the page he had been reading.

"Professor Flitwick didn't give us any homework on protective charms." Hermione blurted, part of her mind still set hard on the unnamed suspicions she'd been trying to sort out. Immediately after saying it she felt like a silly cow and she blushed. She might as well have told him that she was suspicious if she was going to sound like she was accusing him. "Are you studying for the OWLs?"

He shrugged. "I was curious about how the magic surrounding the school worked." He didn't sound the least bit curious but rather like it was all a huge shore. "I couldn't find any specific information about it in Hogwarts a History."

"You've read Hogwarts a History?" Hermione asked; surprised because she'd been convinced that she was the only one that actually had. At least she seemed to be the only one in Gryffindor that had.

He shrugged.

"I don't think you'll find anything about Hogwarts' barrier in that anyway." She said, falling into what Ron would call 'lecturing mode'. She wasn't telling him anything that he couldn't find out by himself anyway. "Well, what I mean is that I don't think anyone knows the exact charms used on Hogwarts. Not even Professor Dumbledore. The only one anyone is sure of is the Muggle-repelling charm."

He raised his sharp eyebrows at that, somehow still managing to look barely awake. "So it's more than one charm."

It wasn't really a question but she nodded anyway. "Professor Flitwick says that they've been piled on top of each other, and according to Vesta Verinacle in 'Practical Protection' Hogwarts itself is keeping them there. Sort of fuelling them, I guess. Most of them are really old, some, like the one on the girl's dormitories, were cast by the founders. "

He looked pensive and she got the impression that he was turning the information over in his head.

"I'm sure they won't have any of those spells on the OWLs though." She added. Just to underline the fact that she wasn't the least bit suspicious about him or the other new students and that she was only trying to help him prepare for the exams.

"I don't care about that." He drawled and yawned. "School's a drag."

Hermione could practically feel every nerve in her body rebel at that comment. "But it's important to get good grades on your OWLs. If you don't you might not be able to get into the classes you want next year!"

That only seemed to make him look even more bored and he closed his eyes; for a moment it looked as if he was preparing to fall asleep right there in the library. "Troublesome." He sighed, got up and then once grabbing his book he left the library.

Hermione stared after him, indignation and disbelief clinging to her mind. What a lazy… What was he exactly? The ever turning cogs in her head were working feverishly to determine that – and she suspected that they would continue to until she had her answer. If there was one to find.

* * *

Kankurou glared at the closed hospital door. Only moments earlier a whole entourage of medi-witches and wizards, along with a few potion experts and transfiguration philosophers had hurried out that way – throwing scandalized looks over their shoulders.

Bah, those useless idiots had been grating on his last nerve! For the past few days he'd been forced to play the nice, well behaved wizard boy and sit through their incessant prodding and poking, their wild theories as to why they couldn't undo the transfiguration and most of all the constant stream of half-arsed spell casting, experimental potions and general 'well we don't know what it is per say but let's try this and see what happens' attitude. It was his damn body they were treating as their personal amusement park - he planned on using it in the future, damn it all!

So he'd told them that – loudly and in no uncertain terms – before telling them that until they had a real plan of action and an actual method of getting this damn thing reversed they could all 'bugger the fuck off'. It seemed to hit the mark because they'd left him alone – finally.

In the silence, more deafening than ever now that their continuous chatter was gone, Kankurou lay down and heaved a sigh. His hands fell on his chest – they always did since he'd been transfigured into a girl, it was as if the damned things had their own gravitational force – and he patted the soft double mounds absentmindedly. Damn Naruto. This was his entire fault. And he would pay.

With that vehement thought still burning in his mind he closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. He hadn't slept well since they transported him to this damned place – mostly due to a bunch of inconsiderate jerks that called themselves medi-wizards - and even the most stalwart shinobi needed some shut eye every now and then. If he was lucky, he thought, he might dream about all of the great revenge tactics he would smash over Naruto's blond, fuzzy-brained head.

He woke up from the sound of the door to his room being opened.

"What do you people want now? I told you to leave me the hell-" Kankurou halted when he actually saw the man who'd entered his room. A foppish looking prat adorned with wavy blond hair and dressed in white hospital robes. He was crouching, as if expecting to have to make a run for it any second. "Who the hell are you?"

The man stood up straight, peering at Kankurou as if surprised to find him there at all, then he grabbed his hospital robe and made a sweeping motion with it that very nearly revealed more than Kankurou wanted to see. With an air of suddenly throwing back a cape to reveal his true identity the man flashed a ridiculously bright smile at him. "Gilderoy Lockhart, is the name my lovely lady! Now, now don't furrow that brow; I still have time to write you any number of autographs."

Kankurou looked on in annoyance while the man quickly, almost feverishly riffled through his pockets and retrieved a pad of paper and a battered looking peacock feather pen. "I don't want any damn autographs. Just get your arse out of my room."

"Everyone wants autographs." The blond man insisted, ripping off a paper he'd just written on and handing it to Kankurou with a flamboyant bow. "All the ladies wish to own the name of Gilderoy Lockhart. Truly I don't know how much will be left of it once I've gifted all of them with a piece. This incidentally is the starting point of my latest work. Go on, take it."

"I don't want it." Kankurou growled. "And I'm not a lady."

"Ah, of course. A lovely girl then." Gilderoy smiled, and it was almost enough to dazzle and sane being. "Indeed very pretty if a bit rough around the edges. Now, take it."

"I'm not a damn girl either." The sand nin snapped. "I'm a man, damn it!"

Gilderoy glanced at him through blond bangs, searchingly examining him with obvious doubt. Then his expression cleared as if hit with sudden inspiration. "Ah, I understand. Say no more." And he made a sneaky sort of wink.

"It's true."

"Certainly, certainly it is." The blond agreed, still smiling and now waving the piece of paper in front of Kankurou's face. "All that is said within these walls is true, you understand, and shall not be repeated elsewhere. I've been told that this is a hospital and people come to be better than they were. Surely such a thing as a girl wanting to be a man is not too great a feat for them here." That last part was said with no little amount of toothy smile and pride.

"Right." Kankurou muttered, who was starting to think that this guy was not exactly right in the head. Even by the astonishingly low standards of magic folk.

"Gilderoy?" A motherly looking witch poked her head inside. The blond man quickly hid his pad and pen as if suspecting that the woman would take them from him. With an air of gentle firmness the woman crossed her arms across her chest. "There you are. I've told you not to sneak out of your room, now leave the young lady alone and come eat your dinner." When the blond man meekly and still somewhat cheerfully did as she asked the woman turned to Kankurou. "I'm sorry Miss; he does have an astonishing talent for sneaking out of his room. He was hit with a spell you understand, that damaged his memory something horrid. Oh, I'm sure you've heard about it – the Prophet did an entire article about it as I recall. I hope he didn't bother you."

"I'm not a girl." Kankurou replied tonelessly.

The witch looked at him oddly for a second but then her expression cleared into one of realisation and she said: "Oh, I see. You're that unfortunate young man that…"

"Yes. Get out," Kankurou interrupted. "Some of us still have need of their beauty sleep."

The witch's eyes widened in indignation and she scoffed as she closed the door behind her with more force than strictly necessary, and Kankurou smirked. Magic folk sure were easily offended, he thought as he went back to sleep.

* * *

Come Wednesday he was ready to scale the walls out of sheer boredom and he'd taken to throwing random objects at any curious medic 'expert' trying to sneak into his room. Two hours ago he'd clipped one of the transfiguration-experts on the nose with a magazine.

He had been meaning to read it, having read something about Umbridge becoming a High inquisitor at Hogwarts, but once the 'expert' showed his sneaky nose – well, it was a too tempting a target. Besides, he had the right to defend himself, didn't he? Unfortunately the man had taken the magazine with him when he hurried back out of the room and Kankurou refused – on principle – to ask for another.

And now he was bored.

When one of the nurses stepped into his room with a tray containing breakfast he was actually relieved to have something to do – even if it was just eating. He thought he spied one of the 'experts' lurking in the hallway but at least the bastard didn't venture into the room. Yet. Perhaps he'd been told of his colleague's fate and didn't dare enter as long as Kankurou had a tray full of ammunition. However, if they were gathering, they would come. Probably in force.

With a growl of annoyance he descended upon the breakfast like a vulture on a carcass.

The nurse feebly told him that he should slow down or he'd choke on something but after he sent her a glare she snorted and left him in peace. A different nurse, one that resembled a sumo-wrestler with a red top bun, came to collect the tray and when she waddled her way into the room she gave him a critical once over.

"What?" he snapped, shoving the last pieces of potatoes into his mouth.

"You need to be showered." The woman said, sounding as if she was talking about watering her plants, and Kankurou promptly choked on his food. A large hand smacked him on the back, forcefully enough to leave a bruise he was sure, until he irritably waved the woman away.

"No one is showering me." He managed eventually.

"Considering the fact that you've not suffered any injuries that in any way hinder your movements, I could allow you to handle it on your own." The woman said.

"No. No way!" Kankurou exclaimed. "There's no way I'm taking a shower like this!"

"And why is that?"

"I have female parts!" He growled, and the reddening of his cheeks was because of anger and nothing else. When she gave him a blank look, he added: "I'm not supposed to have female parts, damn it!"

"Well you got them now, don't you? And those 'female parts' needs to be cleaned every once in a while." The whale of a woman said. "You, young man, is beginning to reek and no patient of mine will smell like the bottom of a latrine. Either you get your bottom into that shower and wash up or I'll be forced to give you a sponge-bath."

The woman looked like she'd do it too and Kankurou suspected that unless he resorted to using chakra she'd have him tied up and sponged in no time. Damn it all.

He protested some more – very loudly – but by the time she showed him to the nearby shower-room he suspected that she'd known she'd won the argument long before. After all she hadn't reached for any sponges even once. He sent her a resentful glare before closing the door forcefully only to realise that he couldn't find the lock.

"Oi! Where's the damn lock!" He hollered through the door.

"This is a hospital, Mr Sabaku. There are no locks on these doors. We need to be able to reach any patient anywhere if the need arise." Came the, to his ears, smug reply and he cussed. It was a long tirade of both Japanese and English expletives that would've made that bat McGonagall send him to detention for a week.

"For a foreigner you have a decent grasp on the less respectable part of our language, Mr Sabaku. Now go on and take that shower before I go collect the sponges." Came the reply.

"What if someone walks in? I'm not going to run around in the nude because you people don't believe in having damn locks on your damn doors!" he exclaimed and kicked the door in anger.

In an instant the door swung open and the meaty woman's meaty face glare in on him. "I'm standing right here, young man. I'm what is standing between you and total exposure. Do you believe I can't keep some nurse from sneaking inside to take a peek at your nubile flesh?"

Kankurou glared back, fingers twitching with the need to snare the woman up in some nice hearty chakra strings and just make a run for it. Damn it, it was useless.

"I believe you could stop a damn… damn dragon on a damn rampage." He muttered and was surprised when she smiled at him.

"That's lovely. Now go on." She said and closed the door firmly. "And don't kick the door again or next time it will be the sponges."

Kankurou was left staring that the closed door, wondering how the heck she'd managed to not only not be insulted but even seemed to think he'd paid her a compliment. He was tempted to point out that he'd meant that she was so heavy, so ugly and so damn off putting that even one of those stupid dragons would make a halt in front of her, but thought better of it. Resignedly he decided that it was simply time to throw in the towel.

Turning around he faced the shower. This only made him acutely aware of his other problem. To get a shower he needed to take off his clothes, which meant that he'd see… well, the girly parts. Alright, so he was fourteen already and, yes, he did notice girls and was curious and all of those things. But he'd hoped that the first girl he ever really saw naked wouldn't be him.

"Damn it all." He muttered and began to undress. Silently he vowed that Naruto was going to pay dearly for this. Dearly and painfully.

* * *

He was silent when the nurse walked him back through the corridors to his room and she didn't comment more than to nod at him in satisfaction once he'd opened the door. He was… contemplating things. Well, actually his mind was sort of blank and he was feeling… embarrassed. As if he'd peeked something he shouldn't, which was just plain stupid because… well… it was his body… only it was the wrong one and… no… no… Kankurou came to the conclusion that he now understood it when people proclaimed that they needed a drink. For some reason some part of his mind stubbornly clung to the idea that if only he could have a drink everything would be alright in the world again.

He glanced up at the meaty jailor, and figured that there was no way in hell that she'd allow that.

"It appears you have company, Mr Sabaku." The nurse told him and it took him a moment to actually register what she said.

"What?" He looked past her into his room, eyes quickly finding Temari and Gaara, then that hag McGonagall gathered in there.

"_Are you blushing?_" Was the first thing out of his sister's mouth. No, hello or how are you feeling, or… and now she was smirking at him. "_You're wet. Don't tell me you've bathed like that. Were you peeking?_"

Why couldn't he have had another one like Gaara instead of Temari for a sister? Sure, a little bro demon container was bad news but at least he kept his trap shut.

"_Peeking at what?_" For whatever reason Gaara chose that moment to discover the use of words.

"_Shut up._" Kankurou finally managed gruffly. It didn't come out sounding half as threatening as he'd wished but rather strangled, as if his throat had closed up around his tongue. "_It's my damn body. And I wasn't…_" Damn it, he was blushing again, he realised and finished with an angry hiss: "_… peeking!_"

Temari only smirked. Gaara glared and frowned when no one seemed inclined to answer his question. Kankurou sent them both a sour look.

"Well then, shall we get on with it?" McGonagall interrupted briskly. He nearly expected her to clap her hands together to further emphasise but she didn't.

"Get on with what?" He muttered and sat down heavily on the bed.

"While you've been lazing around in bed we've been doing some real work." Temari said and he glared at her. Lazing around? He'd been prodded and poked at; and examined and re-examined so much he felt like… he couldn't even think of a metaphor. Not even animals were treated like he had been and if at any place they were he might just rush off to free them once his own problem was solved.

"Mr Uzumaki has demonstrated his… unique spell to us, Mr Sabaku, and in essence we now believe that with my aid we can reverse what has happened to you. And I also believe this conversation is one best kept beyond that of curious ears." McGonagall clarified and after casting some type of spell she continued: "This shakra Mr Uzumaki mixed into the spell is what appears to make it withstand the usual manners of being reversed. "

"Yeah, yeah." Kankurou replied tiredly, resting his arms on his knees. "So can you fix it?"

"Naruto showed us the spell." Gaara replied. "Temari and Professor McGonagall can break it."

Kankurou smiled. He didn't ask why Gaara was even there if he wasn't going to help. That he came at all said all that Kankurou needed to know.

"Well let's get to it then!" He exclaimed, flopping down on the bed. "Work your damn magic and make me a man again!"

He saw Temari shaking her head at him, doing that my-brother-is-an-idiot expression that she had down pat, and then they got to work.

* * *

Hell yeah! Kankurou had to fight down the urge to do a silly little victory dance in the middle of the room when he could finally look into the mirror and find his own, manly face staring back at him.

"No offence, dear, but I rather preferred the previous visage." Said the golden gargoyle carved into the mirror frame and Temari snickered behind him.

"Bah, well you obviously have no sense of style." Kankurou remarked, silently wondering when exactly he'd grown so used to talking furniture that it didn't bother him anymore. Turning away from the gargoyle he looked at his siblings, both of whom were watching him back. "_Let's get the hell out of here_."

"_We have to wait for the Professor before we move out_." Temari replied. "_These magic folk got all sorts of regulations and stuff that they've got to follow._"

Kankurou snorted, impatient to get a move on and get as far away from this place as possible. He looked up when the door opened and McGonagall stepped inside, she was followed by a rather harassed looking medi-wizard.

"So can we leave now?" Kankurou asked, already looking to see which one of those two had his shoes and travelling clothes. They'd taken them when he'd first arrived at St Mungos but now that it was finally time to get the heck out of there-

"Ah, unfortunately that will have to wait a little while longer yet, Mr Sabaku." The harassed looking man said.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" He exclaimed in frustration. He just wanted to leave this damned place, was that too much to ask?

"It means, Mr Sabaku, that while your siblings and I return to Hogwarts, you will have to remain here for another night." McGonagall replied stiffly. "And do watch your language if you please."

"I don't please." Kankurou said and he noticed Temari sighing – probably about how stupid he was being. "You people sent me here to get better, now I'm better and I want to leave, damn it!"

"Yes, yes, but you must understand-"The frazzled man began only to be interrupted by McGonagall.

"Mr Sabaku, while I am sympathetic to your plight I will not condone this incessant, stubborn behaviour on your part. You're a student of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and I expect all of my students to be on their best behaviour at all times." He almost expected her to start wagging a finger under his nose but she only stood taller and straighter while lecturing him, staring down at him like a ruffled hawk on what she perceived to be a mouse. "Now, you will remain here, in the care of the medi-witches for another night so they might ascertain that none of what I did to break this errant spell has left any long lasting damages on your person. Tomorrow someone shall come and bring you back to Hogwarts."

"_Stay, Kankurou_." Gaara broke in, coming to stand beside him. He glanced up at Kankurou with that deadpan look of his before closing his eyes and frowning.

"_You have to stay, Kankurou. These people do things differently from us and we have to follow their rules._" Temari added. "_Besides McGonagall took a huge risk breaking that spell without the consent of these medi-witches so you owe it to her to not make this any more difficult than it has to be. So stop being an ass and just do as they tell you._"

In his heart of heart Kankurou wanted to argue but he did recognise a lost battle when he saw one, so with a muttered cuss – in Japanese – he muttered a: "Fine."

His siblings and the Gryffindor-hag left not soon after and once they were out the door his room was swarmed by the congregation of 'experts' he'd chased out of there the day previous. He resigned himself to their poking and prodding and half-arsed questions and theories once more – telling himself to wait just one more day.

* * *

In the end he chased them out only an hour later when one of the potioneers decided to stab him in the arm with a syringe to take a look at his blood. The idiot didn't appear to have any working knowledge as to how to work the damn thing – from what he caught it was considered a muggle contraption – and just pushed it into his arm without warning or care. He even had the audacity to look offended when Kankurou yelled and snatched the needle away from him, throwing it into a wall. Yelling cusses at their retreating backs when he chased them out of the room, all the while rubbing his aching arm, he thought he heard the potioneer muttering something about 'that's not the way they behaved on that muggle telly thing.'

Kankurou slammed the door shut again. Wizards were not only damn insane, they were downright dangerous, he decided when he heavily fell on his bed and glared at the ceiling with frustration.

Observation. That was what they called it – keeping him here against his will when there obviously was nothing wrong with him. Kidnapping felt more accurate, Kankurou thought bitterly and gingerly began weaving chakra strings. He kept them thin, thin enough which even if they actually were doing any sort of surveillance they'd never see the strings, before cutting them off. Then he made new ones. It was one of the first things they learned once a student committed himself to the art of puppet mastery. For a puppet master the art of making chakra strings was everything, it was the very foundation upon which everything else was built. If he was going to be lying around here all damn day he might as well do something worthwhile.

He continued with holding up his hands, wriggling his fingers while he attempted to both cut and then reattach chakra strings to each other – a much more difficult piece of training and one that he'd not yet managed to master.

Yeah, this'd give those wankers something to observe. Hopefully they'd get as bored as he was and just give it up already.

He'd been at it for a few hours and was starting to develop a headache – a sure sign to cease any further use of chakra for a while. Still he kept at it, trying once more to catch a cut string with a new one, only to once again fail miserably. Frustrated he pushed his hands to the mattress and took a deep breath. He hadn't really been expecting to succeed – catching chakra strings was a very high level skill that only the most skilled puppet masters ever managed but that didn't mean that it wasn't annoying to fail. Continuously.

In theory it didn't seem all that difficult but in practice it was a nightmare. Catching a stray string and reattach it to a new one was like… trying to throw a thread through a needle's eye from fifty metres away. Chiyo's wording, not his.

Of course if he could just do it once – just once! – he knew he could do it again.

With a grunt Kankurou pushed himself up from the bed and padded across the room, and peaking outside he made damn sure that none of those blasted 'experts' were hanging about outside his door. It wasn't as if he was afraid of them or anything but he'd be damned if he'd let them poke any more holes in him anytime soon.

Once satisfied that he wouldn't be attacked as soon as he stepped outside he did so, and casually made his way down the corridor to take a look about the place. He'd spent the past couple of days cooped up and maybe, just maybe, the incarceration was beginning to grate on his nerves a bit. A shinobi was just not meant to be inactive for that long, he figured.

Up until the moment he'd been sent to St Mungo's he'd thought that all of the places in the wizarding world were old and haggard – or as he'd noticed that magic folk preferred to term it "lived in" – but the hospital looked more like the buildings he'd seen in the muggle part of the world. It was clean and very, very white, and just as sterile looking as any hospital back in the Elemental countries.

He sneaked past the nurses' office, having spotted the whale woman inside, and quickly continued down the hall. He already knew that he was currently on the fourth floor – Spell Damage ward – having made very certain to put that piece of information aside when he was first brought in. You never knew when you needed to make a run for it after all. Next to a door a bit further down the hall he found a sign where it was carefully noted in bold letters:

GROUND FLOOR – RECEPTION AND ARTEFACT ACCIDENTS

FIRST FLOOR – CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES

SECOND FLOOR - MAGICAL BUGS AND DISEASES

THIRD FLOOR – POTIONS AND PLANT POISONING

FOURTH FLOOR – SPELL DAMAGE / JANUS THICKEY WARD

FIFTH FLOOR – VISITOR'S TEAROOM AND HOSPITAL SHOP

Kankurou scratched the back of his head, peering at the sign as he debated where to go. He supposed that the creature-induced injuries could be good for a laugh; people generally had a good story to go with the injury in a place like that he wagered. Better keep a distance from the magical bugs and diseases ward though. There was no way that he'd willingly place himself at risk of catching some sort of magical flu. From what he'd seen of the magical world he'd probably end up burping bats or shitting ducks.

Perhaps he could find a way to truss up Naruto and throw him in there though? If he got real lucky he might even find some sick baby that could lick the little blond bastard, Kankurou thought and grinned at the thought.

Speaking of blonds, he thought as he caught sight of that crazy guy – Gilded something or other – sneaking out of another room. When the blond noticed him he stood tall suddenly, performing a grandiose sort of 'shhh' sign before making a very theatrical parody of sneaking down the hall. Crazy ass bastard...

"Well hello there, my young friend." The blond began babbling as soon as he was within speaking range. Apparently he'd forgotten about the fact that he was trying to be sneaky because he spoke loudly and clearly. "Are you here fishing for an autograph? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you are!"

Gritting his teeth Kankurou grabbed the deranged wizard and, throwing the door open, roughly pushed him through. "Would you keep a damn lid on it?" He hissed as soon as the door closed behind them. "You're going to alert every nurse on the floor if you run around hollering like a damn nutter."

Never mind that he obviously _was_ a damn nutter, Kankurou added snidely.

"Oh, yes of course. This is a hospital, isn't it? Are you injured?" The man asked, looking around the stairwell with wide eyes.

"Not me, but I'm betting you've lost more than your fair share of marbles somewhere." Kankurou muttered, wondering how immoral it would be of him to just knock the fool out. With his luck the hag of Gryffindor would come charging through the door the moment he did and then lecture him on proper behaviour for the remainder of his days.

The blond blinked at him before smiling that dazzling smile. "I suppose you want my autograph now then. Surely if you're not injured you must be a fan that has come to-"

"I don't want your damn autograph." Kankurou snapped and when he heard a commotion outside the door quickly made a sign for the other man to keep his mouth shut.

The blond nodded quickly, making a zipping up motion in front of his mouth while Kankurou pushed open the door to take a look at what was going on.

He caught a sight of a small squadron of medi-wizards and witches escorting a man with shallow skin. The man was making a sort of 'shuuu' sound and when they got closer Kankurou let the door slip shut again.

Sending his unwanted partner in crime another glare he made certain that the other man would stay quiet before once again pushing it open. By then the whole procession had passed the door and was continuing down the hall.

"I think… I think that he is under the impression that he's a teapot." A man's voice said. He sounded worried. For good reason, Kankurou figured, because he couldn't imagine that believing that you were a teapot would be very pleasant.

"It would be a plausible explanation for his behaviour." Another voice, also male, agreed. "Could you tell me what exactly prompted this, Mr Weasley?"

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Mr Bode works in a classified part of the Ministry." Yet another voice broke in. this one was stern and firm. "Unfortunately there was no one else around when the accident occurred but we believe that Mr Bode came in contact with an object surrounded with a magical ward."

"We will need to know more details than that, Auror Shacklebolt, if we are to have any hope of helping your colleague. We need to know the specific ward and-"

"I will speak to the minister himself first thing in the morning."

"See that you do." The second man replied sternly and then sighed. "Meanwhile I believe that it is safe to say that you might as well leave. There really is little either of you can do for him at this time."

Apparently that was the end of that conversation because there was a pause before anyone spoke again.

"Arthur, may I speak with you, please?"

"This is not a very safe location."

"The stairs."

Kankurou cussed inwardly, quickly grabbing a hold of the blond fool and pushing him up the stairs until they were safely hidden from view. As soon as they were, he heard the door open and close. He made a shushing sign to the blond man again – just in case the idiot had forgotten and said idiot smiled brightly at him. As if everything was right in the world.

"This was not an accident." The more stern sounding man said, and hearing that Kankurou pricked his ears. Now this could be valuable information.

"Do you believe that it was… You-Know-Who?" the other replied. He didn't sound scared, only resigned. Serious.

"More likely one of his Death Eaters. They probably had him under the Imperius. Broderick had worked in the Department of Mysteries for far too long to make a mistake like this, and you know that he's never been one to treat his work with anything but outmost care."

The other man must've agreed because he sighed. "We already know that You-Know-Who has eyes and ears in the Ministry. The question is how many and who. And what were they after? We need to speak with Dumbledore about this."

"Yes. I will make inquiries as to the whereabouts of our known collaborators but you and I both know that pinning one of them down with this will most likely be doomed to fail. They would all have made certain to have alibis. Unless of course Broderick was one of them from the beginning."

"No." the previously weaker sounding voice –a Weasley, like that Ron guy – was strong now. "I cannot believe that Broderick would be a Death Eater, or even a collaborator."

"We cannot rule anything out. Until this is finished everyone are a suspect."

"You're beginning to sound like Moody, Kingsley." Weasley replied, sounding tiredly amused.

"Perhaps we all need to sound a tad more like Moody." The other man replied and they left the stairs again.

Huh, who'd have guessed, Kankurou thought cynically. Magic folk actually preparing for the oncoming war.

"This is dark times." Kankurou had nearly forgotten about his unwanted companion until the blond suddenly spoke, for some reason sounding the sanest he'd ever heard him.

"Yeah well," Kankurou muttered distractedly, trying to go through all of the new information he'd collected and trying to piece it together with what he already knew of this You-Know-Who business. He was vaguely aware of the other man scribbling something down on that pad of paper he kept hidden in those robes of his. "That's the way of the world."

"Indeed it is, indeed it is." The blond agreed sagely. "Now," the man said and tore off a paper from the pad with a flourish. "Here's your heart's one true desire – one beautifully penned autograph from none other than the magnificent Gilderoy Lockhart!"

Kankurou glared at the offending paper, at the offending hand and the cheerily offending man. He wanted to shove the damn paper down the man's throat, he really did. Only the vague memory of schooling in proper etiquette he'd received from his mother long ago stilled his hand – you couldn't manhandle crazy people after all. So Kankurou took the paper and sighed heavily.

Perhaps the idiot would shut his mouth about it now.

* * *

"Damn."

That was the first thing out of Kankurou's mouth when the door to his room opened in the morning.

"Good morning to you as well, Mr Sabaku." The withered old witch – commonly known as Professor McGonagall – said and arched an eyebrow at him in a pointed manner. "I'm happy to note that the healers has found nothing that suggest any lasting damage to your person, however your tongue still need a scrubbing."

Of course Hogwarts couldn't have sent someone else to 'escort' him back to school, could they?

The trip with his personal babysitter was if not pleasant at least quick. McGonagall didn't waste any time in getting him discharged, getting him his clothes and ushering him into a fireplace.

Floo-powder sure had its advantages, Kankurou decided as he climbed out of the fireplace. Not the tidiest way of travel though, he thought while he brushed soot off his clothes.

"Come along, Mr Sabaku." The wicked witch ordered and swept past him. The way she halted by the door, turning her head and arching an eyebrow told him that she expected to be obeyed. Damn hag.

Reluctantly following her they ascended a narrow stairway and into a tavern where the professor exchanged quick greetings with a pretty and nicely curved woman behind the counter before hurrying him along outside.

It was raining heavily and he stopped for a moment inside the tavern to glare up at the cloudy skies and then at the muddy ground. He remembered when he was a child and Temari told him that rain was the gods emptying their toilet – of course it'd been during the brief rain period in Suna when she'd said that and it'd taken uncle Yashamaru and his father a week to get him to leave the house again.

Shaking his head at the memory he ended up smirking because, really, it was a nice enough memory.

"Oi, is it always this miserable around here?" Kankurou asked, finally stepping outside and into the rain, closing the tavern's door behind him. His feet sank into the mud and made a squishing sound when he followed McGonagall down the street. Looking around he saw several other little houses scattered about the area, making this a small town he supposed, but unlike himself and the hag of Gryffindor the inhabitants had the good sense to stay out of this weather. In the distance, behind a forest, he could see Hogwarts.

"I think I can safely say it will become much more miserable than this once winter comes." McGonagall replied, leading him out of the town and along a narrow road that seemed to lead to the castle. Thinking about how the weather would become worse than it already was he muttered a Japanese cuss, and because the mud was slippery he used chakra to anchor himself to the ground more securely while he walked. "I thought I told you to watch your language, Mr Sabaku."

"How the hell did you know what I said?" He blurted out, stopping on the sodden ground and staring at her.

"I may not speak your language but I've become adept at recognising your tone of voice." She snapped back without stopping.

Great.

He was just about to hurry after her when… he thought he could feel someone watching him. Standing very still he cautiously looked around at the surrounding trees, trying to find the source. He didn't have any luck. The forests and hills appeared as deserted as ever.

An ambush?

Perhaps. But from where? And who would they be aiming for, him or the hag?

"Mr Sabaku!"

The moment that McGonagall's cry sounded and he turned her way the feeling of being watched was gone. It was almost enough for him to brush it off as his imagination playing tricks – which given the influence that magic seemed to have on his senses might actually be the case. Still he'd have to speak to the others about this.

"Move those feet of yours. I don't fancy catching my death out here." McGonagall called.

Yeah, neither did he.

He kept an eye on the trees for the rest of the walk, cautiously searching for that chakra again but not finding it. Perhaps it was only the magic of this place that was turning his senses against him after all, he thought as he stepped into the Great Hall. Breakfast was served and most of the other students were already seated, stuffing their faces and chatting, but when they saw him there was a distinct shift in the dynamic of the groups. Abruptly there was a lot of elbowing, whispering and sniggering involved. He pushed aside the urge to smack the whole lot of them over their stupid heads, shifted into a challenging pose and barked: "What? Haven't you ever seen a man before?"

This was followed by more sniggering but at least this time it quickly lessened when the brats realised that he was no more inclined to any type of bullying than before his venture into womanhood. Damn that Naruto. When he put his hands around that blonde's scrawny little neck…

* * *

Gah!

Too much! It's too much!

Not for the first time that night Naruto banged his head down on the unsuspecting Potion book and groaned.

"Hey, Naruto?" Neville asked from where he was sitting on his own bed.

"Yeah?" he muttered, head still buried in the book. There was a small pause, then:

"Er… are you alright, mate?" Seamus asked, peering at him from behind his transfigurations textbook. Naruto looked at him with every ounce of misery plain on his face.

"I don't think he understood. Try simpler words." Neville said with an uncertain little smile. In actuality Naruto understood them fine, perfectly really, but they were not supposed to know that.

Sitting back up Naruto decided that he'd have to make do with body language so he pointed at the magically translated book with exasperation and then threw his arms out with frustration. "Potion bad!"

"You said it, mate." Seamus agreed wholeheartedly. "Bloody Snape's always heaping loads of homework at us. It's the only way he can get his jollies I wager. It's not as if we'll actually use this stuff in real life. Best get used to it though 'cause the old bat's not going to let up."

Sighing Naruto glared down at his book. There was no way he'd be able to get this homework done until tomorrow! There was just no way! And what the heck was an ocaline stone anyway?

Then an idea suddenly struck him and he looked up at his two friends with renewed hope.

"Help?"

"Sorry, man, I haven't done mine and I've still got to do McGonagall's homework too." Seamus said, shaking his head.

"I'm… I'm not very good at potions." Neville murmured, blushing. "Perhaps you could ask Hermione?"

Seamus snorted. "She'll never let him copy her homework. She's all kind of stingy about that. Won't even help out Ron and Harry from what I hear."

"I guess." Neville agreed solemnly. "Sorry Naruto."

"I guess you can't ask Temari either. She's been mighty brassed off at you since you did that spell on her brother." Seamus said, and then he grinned. "Bloody brilliant that was."

Naruto snickered along. Although what he'd done had been in the line of duty it had been one of the best pranks he'd ever pulled. Magic sure had its advantages; he never would've been able to pull something like that of with a jutsu.

"Speaking of…" Seamus said, setting down his book. "How come you're not… you know, covered in bruises or walking funny? I'd have thought that Kankyro guy would've at least hexed you to kingdom come by now."

Naruto snorted. As if I'd let him, he thought. That stupid bat-brain didn't stand a chance against him – he could use his rasengan to smash his stupid puppets into kindling and then he could kick Kankurou's ass. He was way faster and better at hand-to-hand combat than some puppet master, after all. Not that he could say any of that so he settled for: "I too fast."

"So you ran away?" Seamus asked.

"No!" Naruto barked, sitting up ramrod straight.

"Hey, mate, I don't blame you, that guy looks like he's got a nasty temper and he's kind of…" Seamus faltered, gesturing idly with one hand.

"Scary." Neville filled in.

"Not scary." Seamus disagreed quickly. "Just… you know… I wouldn't want to be on his shit-list, is all."

"Scary." Neville concluded.

While the other two occupants in the room began discussing the possible scariness of Kankurou Sabaku, Naruto ended up on the out. They were talking fast now and his poor English didn't stand a chance of interrupting the rapid flow of words. Naruto sighed, fingering the potion homework without any real hope of being able to finish it.

"…and let's face it, I wouldn't want to get into a fight with Temari either. " Seamus was saying. "Or that redhead Slytherin. Lavender said she saw him looking at Peeves and the little bastard went flying away screaming – Peeves not the redhead. There's something off about him."

"Uhm… are you sure? I just mean… Lavender gossips a lot." Neville said uncertainly.

"Gaara!" Naruto exclaimed loudly, suddenly having the brightest idea ever. Gaara didn't sleep so he must've already done the potion homework days ago and he always seemed to get this potion stuff.

"What's that?" Seamus asked, peering at him doubtfully.

"That redheaded Slytherin?" Neville asked at the same time.

"What about him?" Seamus asked, and then, probably because he remembered that Naruto was Gaara's friend, added: "I wasn't trying to be mean or anything. I was just retelling what Lavender said about him."

"Gaara." Naruto repeated, shaking his head and pointing excitedly at his book. "Knows."

"Wait. You're going to ask him to help you?" Seamus looked positively mortified while Naruto bounced out of bed, book in hand. "But he's a _Slytherin_."

Naruto halted just as he was on his way out the door. People kept telling him that, as if being in Slytherin somehow meant something. It was the kind of thing he'd been hearing his whole life and it just made him so…

Turning around he glared at the taller boy.

"Gaara." He proclaimed stoically. "My. Friend."

Seamus looked a little taken aback for a moment. "Yeah. Yeah, alright, mate."

After giving Seamus one last glare, just to make sure that the message sunk in, he stepped out into the corridor and slammed the door.

It was perhaps one of those pointless battles people kept warning him about and that he had a knack for encountering. The hatred between Gryffindor and Slytherin was deeply rooted and both houses seemed determined to think the worst of the other. So maybe he couldn't change that but that didn't mean he'd let it change him, or make him not defend his friends. Besides, he thought while he walked down the stairs to the common-room, a maybe wasn't a never.

"-STOP LAUGHING!"

Naruto instinctively flattened himself against the wall when he was abruptly smacked back into stealthy shinobi mode by the loud yell. What the heck was that all about? Heh, he probably looked silly standing around like this, he decided and relaxed. Slowly sneaking down the rest of the stairs he peeked into the common-room and caught sight of three people milling around.

"You don't know what it's like! You – neither of you- you've never had to face him, have you?" Harry, because he was the one who'd been yelling, continued heatedly. "You think it's just memorising a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The whole time you're sure you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own – your own brain and guts or whatever – like you can think straight when you know you're about a nanosecond from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friend die- they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that- and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he was messed up- you just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me, it would've been if Voldemort hadn't needed me-"

Naruto frowned. He knew that feeling. Every shinobi knew and understood that feeling.

"We weren't saying anything like that, mate," Ron protested. "We weren't having a go at Diggory, we didn't – you've got the wrong end of the-" the redhead cut himself off. Perhaps he didn't know what else to say.

"Harry," Hermione cut in softly. "don't you see? This… this is exactly why we need you… we need to know what's it r-really like… facing him… facing V-Voldemort."

Harry paused and for a few moments no one said a thing. With a sigh the black haired boy slouched down in a chair and the three friends just stared back and forth between each other. Harry was silently clenching and unclenching his hand where the words that the toad woman forced him to write were deeply engraved. Naruto rubbed the spot on the back of his own hand, remembering that feeling too, and feeling a little guilty about Dumbledore having reassigned his detention to Filch. Dumbledore had said he didn't want either of the shinobi to place themselves too close to the toad lady because – well it had been something about her being from the Ministry of Magic.

"Well… just think about it." Hermione said quietly. "Please?"

Slowly Harry nodded and Hermione walked into the girl's dormitory.

Moments later Ron followed her example and began to walk towards were Naruto was hiding. Deciding that this was the kind of conversation that they wouldn't have wanted anyone to overhear Naruto quickly jumped straight up and attached himself to the ceiling with chakra. It wasn't high or anything but he hoped that in the gloom of night they wouldn't notice him there.

He watched Ron pass under him in silence and soon Harry followed, breathing out a relieved sigh he jumped back down and thought this new development over. Maybe the fight hadn't been about anything important but something, an instinct, told him otherwise. Oh yeah, this was definitely the kind of thing he should report back to the others.

Wait… the others… there was something he was going to…

"_Crap! Gaara!_"

Rushing out of the common-room he hoped that his friend hadn't already hid behind the closed doors of the Slytherin dorms.

"_Come on Gaara… don't leave your buddy hanging…_"

* * *

**Author's notes:** Hm, I'm feeling better about this chapter than the previous one. Thankfully. I think it might have something to do with how much joy I take in writing from Kankurou's POV – he's a funny guy. In a snide and slightly embittered kind of way.

Hopefully it's pretty clear about where into the story it's taking place – and since I assume everyone is up to speed with Harry Potter I'll just make it even clearer by writing it down without adding any SPOILER ALERT: Umbridge has just become High Inquisitor, Voldemort is trying to get the prophesy and Harry and gang is sort of starting to plan doing the whole Dumbledore's Army thing.

Also Naruto is trying desperately not to fail potions.

I might as well add that I suspect that the next chapter will be delayed – haven't even begun writing it yet. I usually have a lot of the next one written before posting but I just haven't had the time.

So, I hope you'll like this chapter and forgive me if the next takes a bit of time before it's completed. _Review_ please! I always love to hear your thoughts.


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